Wall Colmonoy Oklahoma City Wins USAF Contract for F-16 Heat Exchanger Remanufacturing

A new contract for an old warplane

Wall Colmonoy Oklahoma City has secured a multi-year, multi-million-dollar contract from the U.S. Air Force to remanufacture heat exchangers for the F-16 Fighting Falcon. The work covers primary and secondary heat exchangers on a jet that first flew in the 1970s and still forms the backbone of the Air Force fighter fleet.

The contract brings the work back to Oklahoma City. Brian Martin, the company's director of business development, said the award reflects an ongoing commitment to aircraft readiness and extending the service life of critical aerospace components.

Why remanufacturing matters

Heat exchangers on military aircraft operate in brutal conditions. They cycle through extreme temperatures, handle corrosive fluids, and must survive thousands of flight hours. Replacing them with new parts is expensive and slow. Remanufacturing restores existing assemblies to original specifications, often at a fraction of the cost and lead time.

Wall Colmonoy Oklahoma City has deep experience in this area. The facility uses high-temperature furnace brazing, machining, and specialized repair procedures developed over decades of military and commercial aerospace work. That background matters when the Air Force needs parts that meet exacting military specifications.

The 3D printing connection

While this particular contract relies on conventional brazing and machining, additive manufacturing is already changing how the military sustains aging equipment. The U.S. Navy's RESTORE laboratory has used 3D scanning and 3D printing to repair obsolete components on systems dating back to the 1980s. When original tooling is gone and replacement parts are no longer made, additive manufacturing can fill the gap.

Navy programs have expanded from one-off repairs to a full distributed sustainment network. The service's Additive Manufacturing Center of Excellence has delivered more than 300 3D-printed components for aging vessels, including reverse-engineered parts for Ohio-class submarines. In one case, a USS Halsey helicopter hangar-door bracket that would have taken 40 weeks to procure through conventional channels was replaced in just over two weeks using 3D printing.

That context matters for the Wall Colmonoy award. Keeping an F-16 flying depends on supply chains that can deliver parts on schedule. As the fleet ages, traditional manufacturing sources disappear. Additive manufacturing gives maintainers another path when original molds, forgings, and castings are no longer available.

Looking ahead

The F-16 will likely remain in service for decades. Lockheed Martin still builds new variants for export customers, and the Air Force continues to upgrade existing airframes with new radars, engines, and mission systems. That extended lifespan means sustainment contracts like Wall Colmonoy's will only grow in importance.

For now, the Oklahoma City facility will focus on heat exchanger work. But if past defense sustainment patterns hold, the same supply pressures that pushed the Navy toward 3D printing could eventually reach the Air Force as well.