<p>With a higher ratio of landings per flying hour than normal, and with most of them being made on the rough pierced steel planking of the temporary runways, the tires suffered. With a higher percentage of the engine life being spent at takeoff power, the engines suffered. At one time, Tunner had to fly spare tires in from the US on a priority mission. Meantime, supply officers were out scrounging engines to add to their very limited stock of spares. They came across a batch of a similar model and whipped them into the pipeline, choosing to ignore the fact that those engines had lower ratings.
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<p>The C-54s were being worked hard, flying eight and one-half hours a day as an average. They badly needed routine maintenance for all the other systems—electrical, cabin conditioning, hydraulic—as well as new tires and spare engines. And there were not enough people to install the 90 engines a month before their expected change time, or to mount 23 new tires every day.
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<p>Tunner got permission to recruit ex-Luftwaffe mechanics to work on the planes at Templehof. It was initially difficult. because of the non-fraternization policy of the occupying powers. A Luftwaffe major general was found who had served in air transports, knew the problems and spoke English; Hans Detlev von Rohden supervised the translation of the technical manuals into German, and the new mechanics began to arrive. By the end of the airlift, German mechanics outnumbered their American counterparts
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<p>After a C-54 had logged 200 hours in the airlift, it was flown to the USAF depot at Burtonwood, England for an inspection. After four of these, it was loaded with a cargo of reparable engines and flown to the United States by a MATS ferry crew. The first US stop was Westover AFB, MA, where its cargo was offloaded; the plane then was ferried to one of the four civilian overhaul facilities handling airlift planes and was cycled through a 44-day major overhaul. At the end of that time, the plane picked up a cargo of spare parts, overhauled engines and similar items and took off for Germany.
