Has DOD learned anything about maintaining military aircraft?

"Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?"

– President G.W. Bush, Florence, South Carolina; January 11, 2000 -





For years, the U.S. DOD didn't always make aircraft maintenance much of a priority. Things were papered-over. Get those aircraft then somehow, fixing them worked by magic.

Has much changed today?

October 1999:

"Another area as it relates to the Kosovo operations that I am personally very interested in learning about is the impact that shortages of personnel has had on planning and execution of operations. For example, we know that there are shortages of key personnel, such as maintenance personnel in the Air Force, especially first-line supervisors. Nearly all of the military services are experiencing personnel shortages, especially within low-density, high-demand military occupational specialty fields. I hope our witnesses today will help us understand the true impact that the personnel shortages have on readiness when the military is asked to go in harm's way to execute a major operation such as ALLIED FORCE."

Let us look at the USMC at the time as a comparison. Maintenance worked through, just some capability that was not present. However, for them, real CAS doesn't always need a laser.

"I mentioned our AV–8B II Pluses that were stationed aboard ARG shipping. They operated very close to theater off the USS NASSAU and the KEARSARGE. That gave them no footprint ashore, excellent maintenance capability, and supply support. Basically we had no problems with those aircraft operating aboard ship, and no missions were lost due to maintenance for those aircraft. The one limitation that we had with the AV–8B was its inability to designate a target with a laser"

Raiding maintenance accounts:

"Mr. ORTIZ. You know, I understand the process of borrowing available funds to finance contingency operations until the Administration decides how it is going to fund the money. I remember one year that we borrowed, or you borrowed, a lot of money and it was taken out from the depot maintenance. All of these accounts were raided because you needed the funds to continue. Now, would you tell me how your service has fared in replacing the money to those accounts that was taken from these other accounts and, if so, what percentage was returned, and has this process of borrowing money impacted on the availability of repair and spare parts performance of the depot level maintenance and ultimately the readiness of the equipment in your service? This is for all of you. Maybe you can give us some insight."

"Can" birds (short for cannibalization), what happens on the flight-line when higher HQs don't fund maintenance properly.

"Then you get to General Handy's problem, which is spare parts on C–5. We are seeing some recovery in spare parts for some of my other weapons systems. The KC–135 is doing fine. The C–5 resists fix on spare parts and so the cannibalization (CANN) rates on the C–5 are astronomical. Maintenance man-hours per flying hour are astronomical, and we need to get that spare parts flow to the C–5 fixed as well.

My latest prognosis is, post-Kosovo, now that that delay is sometime next spring, to answer your question from the first panel. It is a combination of problems. It is a troublesome air machine and requires me, on a day-to-day basis when I have a priority mission, one of national importance, one that is going to make the headlines, when I have need for a C–5, I put two against it just to make sure, which cuts into my capability. Long answer, sir, but that is the C–5."

Good reading from the GAO in 2001.




Money handed over to address problems, but is it managed well?

"Mr. ORTIZ. One of the things that I have never been able to understand, this committee has been involved in spare parts because every time we visit, whether it is a unit in the United States, domestically or foreign, anywhere we go, spare parts. This is something that we have been dealing with for three to four years. The Chief testified and some other Pentagon official testified that still it would take 18 months to fix this problem. I mean we have been discussing it for four or five years and been putting money into it, and then they come and testify that still it is going to take 18 months to handle the spare parts problem? I just can't understand, Mr. Chairman. Is it the people that build the parts that can't build them?

General JUMPER. Sir, I am going to let our expert answer that in the next panel. He is wincing back there."

Not all that log ago.