Transforming the aircraft inspection process

Air Force Journal of Logistics, Winter, 2008 by Donald A. Van Patten

Compelling reasons exist to radically change the current inspection process. The Air Force's inventory of aircraft has become more geriatric than ever before, leading to increased downtime due to inspections and age-related maintenance factors. Consequently, operating costs for these mature aircraft fleets have soared 83 percent over the last decade.

Because of the projected budget shortfalls, aircraft recapitalization programs will be severely constrained and take 20 years or longer to fully replace their predecessors. As a result, older aircraft will be forced to continue in service to cover the combat capability gaps until the replacement aircraft achieve full strength. Additionally, the cost of replacement weapons systems has become so great that Congress has enacted legislation to prevent the Air Force from retiring aircraft, forcing older aircraft to be flown and be maintained for longer periods to maximize their return on investment.

Overlaid on these factors is the fact that the Air Force has been engaged in combat operations since 1991 and will likely continue to be for the foreseeable future. The combination of high operations tempo, an aging total fleet, and continual personnel reductions makes it imperative for the Air Force to apply Air Force Smart Operations for the 21st Century (AFSO21) concepts to the aircraft inspection process. The threat of terrorism and asymmetric warfare has forced the Air Force to be continually ready to deploy and fight. The Army's transformation and increasingly joint nature of military operations make it imperative for the Air Force to achieve and sustain the highest levels of aircraft availability possible. With the program budget decision-driven manpower reductions, the Air Force cannot continue to carry out the current manpower-intensive inspection requirements and still sustain today's levels of combat capability. The Maintenance Steering Group-3 approach offers the Air Force an opportunity to fully exploit AFSO21 efficiencies to produce combat-ready aircraft with increased availability, reduced cost, and improved unit control through an iterative and responsive inspection construct. Transforming the aircraft inspection process is one approach to produce the efficiencies required to better defend the United States and her allies in the global war against terrorism.

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Introduction

To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven; ... a time to break down, and a time to build up; ... a time to keep, and a time to throw away; ... a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; ... a time of war, and a time of peace. (1)

--Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

The next 5 years promise to bring significant changes to the Air Force's current operating environment. This change is prompted by several budget initiatives to provide funds for vital programs that include recapitalizing the growing inventory of aging aircraft. Some of these initiatives target manpower billets in specific areas across the active, reserve, and National Guard forces with a projected goal of reducing full-time equivalent positions by approximately 40,000. (2) One initiative, released as Programmed Budget Decision (PBD) 716, directs the offsets to be fully executed by the end of fiscal year (FY) 2011 across most Air Force specialty codes (AFSCs) in order to minimize huge losses within a few areas. Within the past year, the period to complete the offsets has been accelerated to the end of FY09. PBD 716's impact on aircraft maintenance is to reduce aircraft inspection manpower by 402 billets--a significant decrease in maintenance capability. (3)

The Air Force's plan to reduce the inspection manpower focuses on regionalizing inspection centers for select aircraft types. Although the depot-level overhaul locations would remain unchanged, this plan would eliminate the base-level inspection docks by flying the aircraft to regional sites for their incremental hourly and periodic maintenance inspections. (4)

In addition to the manpower reductions, the Air Force has begun efforts to improve aircraft availability and decrease cost. Faced with decreasing budgets, Air Force leadership established goals to increase aircraft availability by 20 percent and reduce costs by 10 percent. (5) Known as the Aircraft Availability Improvement Program (AAIP), all levels of aircraft sustainment have been directed to develop efficiency initiatives to achieve the PBD goals. (6)

In order to achieve the projected PBD 716 manpower savings of $23.4M over the Future Year Defense Plan (FYDP), there appear to be three viable options. The first option would be to yield the manpower positions while retaining the phase and isochronal inspection docks at their current base-level locations. (7) A second option would be to fully comply with the PBD and regionalize select inspection activities. The last option would be to develop a hybrid alternative--sending aircraft to the regional facilities for heavy inspections, but performing the light checks or minor inspections at the base.