Download or read book The Costs of Aging Aircraft written by Matthew C. Dixon and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation's objective is to assist the Air Force (AF) in making difficult yet necessary choices regarding its aging fleets in order to fulfill national security objectives at lowest cost. Costs related to maintenance are a key component to the AF's decision-making process. In general, AF fleets are aging. This motivates the AF to want accurate maintenance cost forecasts. Forecasts of its current fleets and future replacement fleets are necessary. This dissertation will use commercial airline data to help the AF make these difficult choices.
Download or read book The Maintenance Costs of Aging Aircraft written by Matthew C. Dixon and published by Rand Corporation. This book was released on 2006 with total page 117 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The U.S. Air Force is grappling with the challenge of aging fleets and the optimal time to replace them. This monograph examines commercial aviation data to draw inferences about aging aircraft that may be relevant to the Air Force. It focuses on "aging effects"-i.e., how aircraft maintenance costs change as aircraft grow older. Although commercial aircraft clearly differ from military aircraft, the aging-effect estimates might help the Air Force to project changing maintenance costs over time.
Download or read book Aging Aircraft Implications for Programmed Depot Maintenance and Engine Support Costs written by Raymond Pyles and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: RAND Project AIR FORCE'S long term interest in the topic of aging aircraft was rekindled in 1994, when we participated in the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board Summer Study that raised technical concerns about the viability of retaining certain aircraft past their original design lives. In 1997, the National Research Council's report on aging USAF aircraft reinforced those concerns. At that time, we initiated a modest Air Force sponsored research effort focused on emerging technical challenges for aircraft maintenance activities. Last summer we built on that technical background to examine the potential effects that aging aircraft would have on the costs of programmed depot maintenance (PDM) and engine support. The results of that work are documented in the annotated briefing that has been made available to the subcommittee. This year, we have broadened our review to cover other support and modernization activities where aircraft age may affect costs and readiness.
Download or read book Aging Aircraft Implications for Programmed Depot Maintenance and Engine Support Costs written by and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 11 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: RAND Project AIR FORCE'S long term interest in the topic of aging aircraft was rekindled in 1994, when we participated in the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board Summer Study that raised technical concerns about the viability of retaining certain aircraft past their original design lives. In 1997, the National Research Council's report on aging USAF aircraft reinforced those concerns. At that time, we initiated a modest Air Force sponsored research effort focused on emerging technical challenges for aircraft maintenance activities. Last summer we built on that technical background to examine the potential effects that aging aircraft would have on the costs of programmed depot maintenance (PDM) and engine support. The results of that work are documented in the annotated briefing that has been made available to the subcommittee. This year, we have broadened our review to cover other support and modernization activities where aircraft age may affect costs and readiness.
Download or read book Operating Costs of Aging Air Force Aircraft written by United States. Congressional Budget Office and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 13 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As aircraft age, they generally become more expensive to operate. The rate at which those operating costs grow is important for setting operating budgets and for deciding when to replace aging systems. The faster costs grow as a system ages, the more funding will be needed to maintain existing aircraft and the sooner it becomes cost-effective to replace aging systems with new aircraft. The rate of cost growth associated with the aging of Air Force aircraft has increased in recent years. Growth in the total Air Force budget during the 2000s appears to explain a considerable portion of the higher estimated annual growth rates in operating costs per flying hour beyond the growth rate intrinsic to the aging of the fleet. In other words, because the Air Force had more resources available, it was able to increase spending on aircraft operation and maintenance.
Download or read book Aging Aircraft written by Raymond Pyles and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 9 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Challenges and Issues with the Further Aging of U S Air Force Aircraft written by J. R. Gebman and published by Rand Corporation. This book was released on 2009 with total page 81 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the next 20 years, the further aging of already-old aircraft will introduce challenges and issues for aircraft operators. The technical challenges relate to structures, propulsion, and systems. The institutional challenges include limitations on independent verification of fleet status and future condition and on information needed for engineering analyses including risk assessment, and an overall scarcity of resources.
Download or read book Aging Aircraft written by Raymond Pyles and published by Rand Corporation. This book was released on 2003 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To help improve the Air Force's ability to foresee the implications for safety, aircraft availability, and cost of its plans to retain aircraft fleets for service lives that may be as long as 80 years, and to identify actions that will mitigate or avoid some of the more severe consequences, this study measures how the USAF aircraft fleets' ages relate to maintenance and modification workloads and material consumption.
Download or read book Life Cycle Cost Analysis of Aging Aircraft Airframe Maintenance written by Kenneth Robert Sperry and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Life Cycle Cost Modeling and Simulation to Determine the Economic Service Life of Aging Aircraft written by K. R. Sperry and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 12 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Estimating the point at which the advantages of a modem aircraft alternative exceed the economic burden of maintaining aging aircraft is very complex. This paper presents a cost estimating methodology to forecast costs associated with * maintaining an aging aircraft fleet, by combining traditional Operation and Support (O & S) cost elements from a USAF AFI 65-503 CORE model, with expert analysis to quantify maintenance cost growth due to aging. The result is an Economic Service Life (ESL) model that can be used to determine the economic service life of an aircraft. The uncertainties associated with long-range forecasting are considered by combining range estimates within a Monte Carlo simulation for each critical input variable.
Download or read book Report on Sustaining Air Force Aging Aircraft Into the 21st Century written by United States. USAF Scientific Advisory Board and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "As many of its fleets of legacy aircraft types are kept in service well beyond their planned services lives (sometimes in age, sometimes in usage, sometimes both), the United States Air Force (USAF) faces numerous engineering and resource challenges for the continued, cost effective sustainment of those aging systems. This report details the recommendations made by the USAF Scientific Advisory Board's Sustaining Aging Aircraft (SAA) Study to best position the Air Force to meet those challenges. The SAA Study Panel visited a cross section of military and commercial aircraft maintenance organizations to assess sustainment practices and identify technologies that can extend system life and ease maintenance costs. The Study identified specific aircraft systems, in addition to structures and engines, that contribute to safety, availability, and effectiveness for aging aircraft; examined commercial practices in airlines, air freight services, and other industries, and evaluated how they might be applied to meet USAF needs; and identified technology needs and technology approaches that can be applied or developed to extend life or ease maintenance of these aircraft systems, while facilitating future adaptations and performance enhancements of the aircraft."--p. 211.
Download or read book Aging aircraft Fleet planning and maintenance written by Sebastian Wagner and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2014-05-12 with total page 25 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 2014 in the subject Engineering - Aerospace Technology, grade: 1,3, University of Applied Sciences Wildau (Wildau Institute of Technology), course: Aviation Management 2012, language: English, abstract: Indeed, the majority of airlines are faced with the challenge of aging fleets and when it might be optimal to replace older aircraft. Well, any discussion of the wisdom of retaining capital equipment is usually based on economic arguments. In a competitive environment, airlines are continuously obliged to improve their business and equipment to stay profitable. The prediction of future maintenance costs of the own fleet is an integral element of prospective budgeting projections; on the other hand they serve as a vital part within aircraft replacement calculations. For example if the costs of maintaining the existing equipment on a timely basis exceeds the capital, interest, and amortization charges on replacement equipment, the decision to buy a sort of replacement is straightforward. In most cases the substitute equipment even offers an improved productivity as well (Dixon 2006, p. 1). Beside any debate concerning costs and efficiency, flight safety considerations also enter into the discussion especially in the field of aviation. The question to repair or replace is an ongoing decision making process for the maintenance department of every airline operator. Now the key questions to be answered in this context are: Is it possible to describe a standard airplane service life and how does the fleet age of world’s leading airlines look like? How does the process of maintenance develop over an aircraft’s whole life cycle and can necessary costs be estimated? What can be done technically to keep aging effects of aircraft under control and when might be the right time to withdraw an aircraft from service? In order to answer the abundance of questions my term paper is divided into an economic based part including compiled data and statistics and a more technical part. In the beginning, this paper investigates the ordinary economic life of commercial airplanes. Additionally I’m going to inspect exemplary the average fleet age of world’s leading airlines. In the second stage I am going to describe how to estimate maintenance costs of aircraft that grow older. Further I wanted to clarify technical aspects and problems that might occur more frequently with the rising age of an aircraft.
Download or read book Zero Sustainment Aircraft for the U S Air Force written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2013-03-12 with total page 57 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Overall Air Force weapon system sustainment (WSS) costs are growing at more than 4 percent per year, while budgets have remained essentially flat. The cost growth is due partly to aging of the aircraft fleet, and partly to the cost of supporting higher-performance aircraft and new capabilities provided by more complex and sophisticated systems, such as the latest intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) platforms. Furthermore, the expectation for the foreseeable future is that sustainment budgets are likely to decrease, so that the gap between budgets and sustainment needs will likely continue to grow wider. Most observers accept that the Air Force will have to adopt new approaches to WSS if it is going to address this problem and remain capable of carrying out its missions. In this context, the original intent of this 3-day workshop was to focus on ways that science and technology (S&T) could help the Air Force reduce sustainment costs. However, as the workshop evolved, the discussions focused more and more on Air Force leadership, management authority, and culture as the more critical factors that need to change in order to solve sustainment problems. Many participants felt that while S&T investments could certainly help-particularly if applied in the early stages ("to the left") of the product life cycle-adopting a transformational management approach that defines the user-driven goals of the enterprise, empowers people to achieve them, and holds them accountable, down to the shop level. Several workshop participants urged Air Force leaders to start the process now, even though it will take years to percolate down through the entire organization. These sustainment concerns are not new and have been studied extensively, including recent reports from the National Research Council's Air Force Studies Board and the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board.
Download or read book Aging Avionics in Military Aircraft written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2001-05-07 with total page 77 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Extending the life of an airframe has proven challenging and costly. Extending the life of an avionics system, however, is one of the most critical and difficult aspects of extending total aircraft system lifetimes. Critical components go out of production or become obsolete, and many former suppliers of military-grade components have gone out of business. From 1986 to 1996, for example, the percentage of discontinued military/aerospace electronic devices nearly doubledâ€"from 7.5 percent to 13.5 percent. In addition, legacy avionics systems, which were designed to meet requirements of the past, generally lack the full capability to perform new missions, meet new threats, or perform well in the new information-intensive battlefield environments. As the legacy aircraft fleet ages, avionics systems will become more and more difficult to support and maintain. Whereas the military once provided a large and profitable market for the electronics industry, the military electronics market today constitutes less than 1 percent of the commercial market. As a result, the military must increasingly rely on commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) technologies for its avionics hardware and software. Although COTS items are generally less expensive than comparable items designed especially to meet military specifications, the technology-refresh cycle for COTS is typically 18 months or less, which exacerbates the obsolescence problem for aircraft whose lifetimes are measured in decades. The short refresh cycle is driven mostly by the tremendous advances in computer systems, which comprise an increasing percentage of avionics content. In response to a request by the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, the National Research Council convened the Committee on Aging Avionics in Military Aircraft, under the auspices of the Air Force Science and Technology Board, to conduct this study. This report summarizes the following: Gather information from DoD, other government agencies, and industrial sources on the status of, and issues surrounding, the aging avionics problem. This should include briefings from and discussions with senior industry executives and military acquisition and support personnel. A part of this activity should include a review of Air Force Materiel Command's study on diminishing manufacturing sources to recommend ways to mitigate avionics obsolescence. Provide recommendations for new approaches and innovative techniques to improve management of aging avionics, with the goal of helping the Air Force to enhance supportability and replacement of aging and obsolescing avionics and minimize associated life cycle costs. Comment on the division of technology responsibility between DoD and industry.
Download or read book Aging Aircraft Repair replacement Decisions with Depot level Capacity as a Policy Choice Variable written by Edward Geoffrey Keating and published by Rand Corporation. This book was released on 2005 with total page 47 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When is it more cost efficient to replace an aircraft rather than continue to maintain it?
Download or read book Aircraft Maintenance written by United States. General Accounting Office and published by . This book was released on 1991 with total page 76 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Investigating Optimal Replacement of Aging Air Force Systems written by Edward Geoffrey Keating and published by Minnesota Historical Society. This book was released on 2003 with total page 58 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As part of a continuing project on aging aircraft and the replacement-or-repair decision, the authors develop a parsimonious model of the decision and apply it to the U.S. Air Force's C-21A transport and KC-135 tanker aircraft. They find that, for the C-21A, it probably would be appropriate to undertake a 20,000 flight hour system and component replacement schedule-prescribed renovation in the 2012 timeframe, but the aircraft should be retired around 2020. For the KC-135 tanker, it would be optimal to replace the KC-135 before the end of the decade
