Aging Aircraft; USAF Workload and Material Consumption Life Cycle Patterns

xxviii, 193, [3] pages. Tables. Figures. References. Originally known as Project RAND, Project Air Force (PAF) was established in 1946 by General H. H. "Hap" Arnold as a way of retaining for the United States Air Force (USAF) the considerable benefits of civilian scientific thinking that had been demonstrated during World War II. Since its founding, PAF has remained the only Air Force federally funded research and development center (FFRDC)) concerned entirely with studies and analyses rather than systems engineering or scientific laboratories. The special FFRDC status facilitates stable USAF support over an extended period of years as well as in-the-family access by the research staff to relevant Air Force information and management personnel. Current United States Air Force (USAF) plans are to retain aircraft fleets for unprecedentedly long service lives, which may be as long as 80 years. The safety, aircraft availability, and cost implications of that fleet-retention policy are unknown. This study is part of Project AIR FORCE's Aging Aircraft Project to improve the Air Force's ability to foresee those implications and identify actions that will mitigate or avoid some of the more severe consequences, Using data from past RAND and industry reports and from various Air Force instructions and maintenance databases, and a regression analysis, it measures how the USAF aircraft fleets ages relate to maintenance and modification workloads and material consumption. It provides the foundation for future estimates of the effects of those activities on maintenance-resource requirements, aircraft availability, and annual operating cost. Maintenance workloads and material consumption generally exhibited late-life growth as aircraft aged, but the rate of that growth depended on both the aircraft's flyaway cost and the workload category. For example, long-term, late-life growth was found in all base- and depot-level maintenance workloads and material-consumption categories, except phased and/or isochronal inspections, per-flying-hour contractor logistics support, and depot modification workloads.…