military aircraft maintenance

Military Aircraft Maintenance - The GAO has a new report on Air Force and Navy aircraft readiness and it's not good.

Years of overuse, a lack of properly trained maintenance personnel, inadequate parts, inadequate and often hazardous storage facilities and, in some cases, a lack of access to critical systems have combined to prevent billions of dollars of Air Force aircraft from flying by the Air and Navy. This is according to a study conducted by the Government Accountability Office on the preparation of eight military airports.

Military Aircraft Maintenance

The latest GAO report on the aircraft fleet of the US military looked at the presence of the Air Force's F-22 Raptor fighters, B-1B Lancer bombers, C-5M Super Galaxy cargo planes and KC-135 Stratotanker aerial refuelers, as well as the Navy. F/A-18E/F Super Hornet fighters, P-8A Poseiden anti-submarine aircraft, C-130T Hercules cargo aircraft and KC-130T Hercules aerial refuelers.

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The Air Force's F-22 Raptor and KC-135 Stratotanker fuel it all on the list of aircraft that the GAO found to be unflyable. (Photo by Joe McNally/Getty Images)

The findings, released on Wednesday, were negative and followed a trend that has seen the US military's ability to keep its aircraft flying steadily declining.

In its final report, the GAO found that between fiscal year 2015 and fiscal year 2021, mission capability rates — the percentage of full time an aircraft can fly and perform at least one mission — were reduced for each of these aircraft.

The Air Force F-22 and the Navy's KC-130T saw a significant drop in the share of aircraft capable of flying, each with a reduction of 16.7 in their mission costs.

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As of fiscal year 2021, that means only half of the Air Force's 1822 Raptors were considered deployable while more than a third of the Navy's 18 KC-130T Hercules were operational.

Two years ago, the watchdog reported that the average mission capability of 18 Air Force and 12 Navy aircraft had fallen since fiscal 2011, and that six out of 18 Air Force aircraft and six out of 12 Navy aircraft had not fulfilled their mission. capacity. target for any year from fiscal year 2011 to 2019.

The Congressional Budget Office reported nearly identical data going back to 2001. In January 2022, they found that the number of mission missions has decreased for both Air Force and Navy aircraft from 2001 to 2019.

All this comes as China and Russia have developed and improved their capabilities while two decades of conflict have reduced the military readiness of the United States.

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But besides the problems of promoting war in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, parts of Africa and elsewhere, there are problems of the system, which the GAO found, has negative consequences.

"The unit maintenance workers we spoke to in this study acknowledged the reduction in potential costs as a result of late completion of unit maintenance," the report found. "They said that fewer capable aircraft could reduce training and other flight opportunities for squadrons, forcing more capable aircraft to fly more often."

To add to the problem, the GAO also found that the Air Force weapons studied are not only increasingly unflyable, they don't fly for long. It is not known, however, how the Navy's aircraft were evaluated in this regard. That's because the Navy doesn't monitor aircraft on the ground for long periods of time, the GAO said, "so they couldn't give us a full account."

The GAO found that only 51% of the Navy's 530 F/A 18E/F Super Hornets could fly by fiscal year 2021. (Photo by Philip A. McDaniel/U.S. Navy/Getty Images)

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But anecdotally, "Navy unit maintenance workers have reported experiencing frequent maintenance outages in recent years, keeping their aircraft grounded for long periods of time."

The maintenance personnel of the Navy unit "also said that sometimes they struggle to keep enough aircraft in a position to meet the objectives of the month because of delays and other problems."

Maintenance unit personnel in the Air Force and Navy told the GAO that they use the number of aircraft down over time as an indicator of the success of their maintenance efforts.

"For example, KC-135 operators we spoke to said they rotate parts between their aircraft in an attempt to prevent any of them from being designated as long-haul aircraft," the GAO reported.

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Of the eight aircraft reviewed by GAO, the KC-135 had the highest operational efficiency, with 71% of its fleet of 396 Stratotankers available to fly beginning in fiscal year 2021. (Photo by Raymond Boyd/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

The lack of qualified security guards adds to the problems, but the services are trying to fix it.

Air Force Headquarters officials told the GAO that the Air Force has worked in recent years to fill the ranks of flight attendants and is seeing results. Navy officials told the GAO that the Navy generally has the aircraft security personnel it needs, although the challenge is finding the right number of qualified and experienced security personnel.

"Nine of the 15 corrections departments we encountered reported that they had found and identified problems with staffing," the GAO found.

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Maintainers from several selected Air Force and Navy aircraft units shared examples of how a lack of knowledge affected aircraft maintenance.

"Manufacturers of one F-22 unit said the planes were being kept for long periods of time for repairs because of a lack of knowledge among their maintainers," the report said. "The developers of the C-5M unit said that the arrival of new workers with no experience has caused delays in the training of these workers and has affected the ability of the unit to support operations until the training and studies are completed.

The manufacturers of one C-130T unit and one KC-130T said that the downtime of the aircraft increased because they were constantly getting new manufacturers with no prior experience or expertise with their aircraft. In addition, the maintainers of the P-8A unit said that "the lack of experience among the replacement crew affects the ability to repair and maintain the flight crew."

The GAO found that the Navy's KC-130T Hercules aerial refueler had one of the worst mission efficiency rates of the aircraft it examined. (Photo by Damon Coulter/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

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"The employees of the 15 maintenance units that we interviewed told us that they found obstacles in buying parts on time, which could cause delays in repairs," said the document.

For example, the C-5M unit had to wait six months for the six fan parts, seven to eight months for the anti-icing valves, nine months for the five window seals, and fourteen months - and counting from June 2021 - for the clutch part. the aircraft's special braking system as well.

The GAO found that about 60 percent of the Air Force's C-5M Super Galaxy cargo planes could be deployed in fiscal year 2021. (US Air Force photo by Master Sgt. Joey Swafford)

Also, the F-22 component manufacturers said they had to wait 239 days in 2020 for the landing gear component to be built and delivered to the unit.

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"Long wait times for parts significantly affect units' ability to perform repairs and may increase the amount of work units must perform," the GAO found.

In some cases, units had to constantly delay planned maintenance for long periods of time because they did not have the parts and equipment needed to carry out the required maintenance work.

"Manufacturers of one F-22 unit told us that, because of the parts unavailability, they spent more time on administrative tasks explaining why repairs were not being done, such as requesting waivers and scheduled maintenance extensions while they. waited. for parts to arrive, rather than repairing their aircraft or training crews."

According to the KC-135 program manual, the frequent unavailability of the three types of components accounted for 2,388 hours of non-mission capable time - the part of the full time when the aircraft is unable to perform any of its assigned tasks due to the unavailability. maintenance portion - in fiscal year 2020. That accounted for half of the entire non-mission-eligible grant period for that year.

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To fix parts and supply shortages, "maintenance personnel on the eight planes selected in our survey said they used the method of feeding other planes to the parts needed."

But even if there are enough parts and people to repair the aircraft, the GAO found that another problem arose.

Some units may not have access to all the information or technical support they need to maintain their aircraft.

The GAO found that two of the aircraft selected in its analysis - the F-22 and the KC-135 - have parts whose data is specific to the manufacturer or supplier and is not easily accessible by maintenance unit personnel.

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The manufacturers of the F-22 unit, for example, said that "they did not get the inspection data (data collected during the monitoring of the state of the aircraft parts for wear or signs of failure) for some parts, such as the auxiliary power, due to the rights of the owners of the data held by the contractor".

As a result, the custodians of this section said that they cannot plan and plan regularly to protect their aircraft, because the

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