Research Catalog

Title

Aging aircraft : USAF workload and material consumption life cycle patterns / Raymond A. Pyles.

Author

Pyles, Raymond, 1941-

Publication

Santa Monica, CA : Rand, ©2003.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

• Project Air Force (U.S.)
• United States. Air Force.

Description

xxviii, 193 pages : illustrations; 23 cm

Summary

• 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. Where data were available, all workload and cost categories were.
• Affected by differences across using commands and early-life transitional events (e.g., break-in periods, early failures). Computational approaches are being developed to forecast aircraft availability from aggregate maintenance-workload data. Future work may address how planners can exploit the equations reported here to address near-term budget and resource-requirement forecasts. This report should be of interest to force planners, maintenance production planners, maintenance policy analysts, system program directors, and logistics and cost analysts.

Subject

• United States. Air Force > Ground support
• United States. Air Force
• Geschichte
• Airplanes, Military > United States > Maintenance and repair
• TECHNOLOGY > Military Science
• Airplanes, Military > Maintenance and repair
• Armed Forces > Ground support
• Instandhaltungskosten
• Luftwaffe
• Militärflugzeug
• Instandhaltung
• United States
• USA

Genre/Form

Statistik.

Note

• "Rand, Project Air Force."
• "Prepared for the United States Air Force."
• "MR-1641."

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 189-193).

Contents

1. Introduction -- 2. Previous Research Has Often Addressed the Relationship Between Age and Maintenance Workloads or Cost -- 3. A Broader Perspective: Life Cycle Patterns, Not Inexorable Growth 26 Summary of This Section -- 4. Estimating Age-Related Workload and Material Growth: Approach Analytic Approach -- 5. Age-Related Workload and Material Cost Growth: Findings Summary of Findings -- 6. Implications -- References.

ISBN

• 0833033492
• 9780833033499

LCCN

2003005775

OCLC

• ocm51892558
• 51892558
• SCSB-1313512

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library