To maintain aging aircraft and equipment, naval aviation is mortgaging its future. Pulling into the squadron the multitude of technologies available that could reduce operations and support costs is the only practicable way to break the cycle.
It is called the "death spiral" by Under Secretary of Defense (Acquisition & Technology) Jacques S. Gansler. Increasingly more is spent on maintaining aging equipment than on replacing it. This death spiral is endemic equipment than on replacing it. This death spiral is having a significant impact on naval aviation. The solution lies in applying new technologies at the squadron level. If we do it right, it can reduce operations and maintenance costs and act as a force multiplier.
What Does an Aircraft Really Cost?
Until recently, many focused only on the cost of buying equipment. Total ownership costs, however, include development, acquisition, and operations and support costs—and operations and support can account for as much as 65% of that composite number. This is getting increased attention as defense faces a large aging equipment inventory. As equipment gets older, it needs more inspection and repair. Also, the price of parts goes up because suppliers dwindle over time. As a result, operations and maintenance is now the biggest expense in defense. Some $103.5 billion was requested for fiscal year 2000, up from $94.8 billion in fiscal year 1999.
This is particularly true in aviation, which is inherently expensive. Today, the average age of the 3,870 naval aircraft in the inventory is 16.5 years and climbing. Replacement of the F- 14 is under way, but the last one will be with us until 2010. The problem is more serious beyond the strike-fighter community. The average age of the EA-6B is 16 years, and when it will be replaced is uncertain. The S-3 has not been produced in 20 years. Consider the average age of the CH-53D and the CH-46 helicopters—28 and 30 years, respectively. They are being replaced by the MV-22, but the last ones will be around until 2014.
The cost of these aging aircraft is all too apparent in the fleet. On the Marine Corps side, the cost per flight hour rose from $2,341 in 1994 to $3,337 in 1998—an increase of 43%. The CH-58D alone requires 38 maintenance hours for each flight hour. On the Navy side, one junior officer described the toll on personnel this way: "It is a vicious circle: the high workload helps drive sailors out; the same workload must be done by fewer, less-experienced sailors; more get out."
There is an operational cost as well—reduced aircraft availability. The amount of time Marine Corps fixed-wing aircraft were down while awaiting maintenance increased from 9% in 1994 to 14% in 1998. To put the problem in perspective, one Navy F-14 squadron conducting pre-deployment training had only six available aircraft out of its usual 11- 12. Of these six, three or four were flying at any given time. The others were used for parts.
As a consequence, the nation pays more for a less capable force. If aging patterns continue, during the first decade of this century naval aviation inventories will drop about 10% below the level required to meet current requirements. But the problem is bigger than that. Aging aircraft will continue to increase operations and support costs. In and era of constrained budgets, those costs will continue to be paid by robbing procurement and research-and-development accounts. This further slows replacement of aging aircraft—hence, the term the "death spiral."
Technology as a Force Multiplier
Breaking out of this death spiral will require rethinking how we use technology. In the past, defense primarily sought technological advances that improved the operational capabilities of weapon systems. In business today, however, technology is being used to revamp the entire corporation. It is being pushed down to the lowest levels and empowering employees. As a result, some companies have tripled output while saving millions through more efficient operations and support.
Technology can be a force multiplier in naval aviation as well. It can empower the squadron—naval aviation's basic warfighting organization. It can reduce tasks and overhead functions in the 400 squadrons and squadron-like organizations throughout the Navy and Marine Corps, and allow manpower to be reallocated to overworked areas. Ultimately, this could make more aircraft available and increase sortie generation rates.
Improving the squadron requires a holistic approach. At a time when the Navy and Marine Corps seek network-centric operations, the squadron remains an "island of systems." None of the systems communicate with each other. Maintenance doesn't know what operations is planning. Operations doesn't have a clue regarding changes in aircraft or weapon status. Supply cannot execute on-time parts delivery, and personnel administration is continuously in a reaction mode.
Networking these systems would make the squadron more synergistic. For example, a "flag" might be sent to operations and maintenance when an aircraft mission capability does not match the mission profile. The personnel office could flag the commanding officer when an individual with critical missions receives transfer orders. Such networking is increasingly occurring in the airline industry.
The biggest area where technology could make a difference is in the maintenance department—it accounts for three-fourths of the squadron. It has an immediate need for real-time diagnostic and prognostic technologies. As one Navy squadron officer writes, "On cruise, our sailors often had only 30 minutes or less to diagnose and repair a discrepancy.... rushed squadron troubleshooters sometimes had to rely on intuition.... if they guessed wrong, a component was introduced into AIMD's [Aircraft Intermediate Maintenance Department] repair cycle needlessly—and the aircraft discrepancy remained." Real-time reporting rectifies this. It allows the right people to be dedicated to the right problem, at the right time.
This is becoming increasingly possible with wearable electronics. In a recent exercise in California, the Navy and Marine Corps demonstrated a man-packed Toshiba Libretto computer, which is connected wirelessly to a wide-area network. Boeing workers wear a head-mounted display that also is connected wirelessly to a wide-area network. Using the system's eyepiece, workers can remotely view digitized technical manuals while routing hydraulic and electrical cable.
When adapted for flight-line use, such technologies offer several applications. They could allow flight-line mechanics greater use of portable diagnostic and prognostic tools. Also, as network-centric operations become more of a reality in the Navy and Marine Corps, wearable electronics could provide the flight-line mechanic with a reach-back capability to the Intermediate Maintenance Department, depots, or even a commercial contractor.
Wearable electronics also would allow mechanics easier access to digitized technical publications, rather than having to rely on the 300-plus documents that a squadron takes on deployment. Commercial airlines increasingly are using digitized technical publications displayed on portable computers to speed up troubleshooting. In addition, the Army already has condensed 103,000 pages of maintenance procedures for the AH-64 helicopter into a single CD-ROM for use on portable computers in the field, and the Naval Sea Systems Command is digitizing nearly 7,000 publications, taking advantage of the Joint Computer-Aided Acquisition Logistics Support—defense's new digital library that is accessible through the Internet.
Oil analysis is one of the most important diagnostics/prognostics, and probably the Navy's greatest contribution to military maintenance. It was initiated by the Denver, Rio Grande and Western Railroad in 1941, adopted by the Navy in 1955, and has been used by the other services since. By taking oil samples and measuring the metal particles they contain, a technician can determine the wear and tear on a critical aircraft component and predict its remaining service life. This enables planned maintenance and avoidance of catastrophic failure.
The problem is that the analysis must be done in a laboratory, which could delay a critical engine overhaul. New technologies such as laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy could provide on-site oil analysis. With this portable system, developed at the Applied Research Laboratory at Pennsylvania State University, a hand-held laser is aimed at a sample and the reflected light is then collected and transmitted via optical fiber to a laptop computer for analysis.
Other possibilities exist for oil analysis at the squadron level. Industry currently uses sensors in plant machinery to provide in-line oil analysis. This will be increasingly possible in aircraft as miniaturization progresses. In addition, filters are doing a better job screening out metal debris in some aircraft, which makes current oil analysis more difficult. Studies by the Joint Oil Analysis Program, however, indicate the feasibility of analyzing oil samples taken from the filters on F/A-18 turbo-engines. Also, the Naval Research Lab soon will demonstrate an X-ray spectroscopy that will take oil samplings on several oil filters.
Much of what used to be aluminum on an aircraft now is composite. The benefits in weight reduction and corrosion resistance are enormous, but there is a price to be paid. Serious damage from debris—such as a blown tire, hail, or even a dropped tool—may not be visible. Old technologies such as c-scan, X-ray, and the time-tested coin tap may require disassembly of the aircraft and depot-level maintenance and expertise. New systems, developed by Penn State and LTI Corp., have updated the old science of shearography—making it portable and digital—and now are commercially available. Training requirements are modest and the equipment is designed for flight-line and shipboard use. If an F/A-18 blows a tire in the Indian Ocean and damage is suspected, a sailor or Marine equipped with a digital shearography device can evaluate the wing and horizontal stabilizer panels in a few hours. The alternative grounding and one-time flight to a depot are costly and might take the aircraft out of service for weeks.
In making medical diagnoses, doctors increasingly are using endoscopes to view internal organs father than opting for more invasive exploratory surgery. In a similar manner, operators at the Entergy Corporation in New Orleans can view generators internally to determine if repair is needed, thus preventing unexpected and extensive downtime later. Bore scopes in aircraft engines provide like capabilities. Previously, they mostly have been rigid, limiting internal views, but the aircraft industry is shifting toward more flexible, fiber-optic bore scopes to improve diagnostic and prognostic capabilities.
Wireless monitoring systems can speed up maintenance and repair. Ansett Australia Airlines uses a system that allows avionics data from an in-flight aircraft to be downloaded to ground support for quick analysis and diagnosis. The system diagnoses problems and provides an optimum sequence of maintenance actions. This reduces troubleshooting time and, ultimately, aircraft turnaround times on the ground. Similarly, a corrosion sensor system has been developed by the Naval Aviation Weapons Center, Aircraft Division. It remotely detects and monitors corrosion in more inaccessible areas of an aircraft. This system collects and stores corrosion information, which can be retrieved by radio transmissions.
From Preventive to Predictive Maintenance
Today, squadrons mostly do preventive maintenance, on a schedule, whether it is needed or not. This is not always efficient—as industry and the surface Navy have found. In some cases, equipment that is not broken gets fixed anyway. It also is counterproductive. Any time a machine is taken apart, rebuilt, or overhauled, the probability of failure increases.
Technology is making it increasingly possible to do "condition-based maintenance"—maintaining equipment based on its condition rather than a schedule. Essentially, technology is used to monitor the equipment's condition, predict its remaining service life, and then plan maintenance around that prognosis. This enables organizations to defer maintenance on healthy machines and schedule repairs for those indicating problems.
Condition-based maintenance has growing appeal for aviation, but the introduction of its technologies will be tempered with caution. NASA's Ames Research Program has initiated a program to help the aviation industry monitor the condition of turbine engines during and after operation. New condition-based maintenance technologies are seen as enabling much-needed life-cycle cost reductions for aging aircraft in defense and commercial industry and as a way to keep costs down in the burgeoning turbofan and turbojet industry.
Bridging the Gap between Science and the Squadron
Finding technology is not a major problem. The Smart Squadron Project, established to reduce squadron operating costs, has an ongoing dialogue with the Applied Research Laboratory at Pennsylvania State University as well as with other members of the science and technology community. A multitude of technologies exist that could reduce operations and support costs. Hard science still may have to solve a few problems, but there is a strong technology "push."
The bigger problem is technology "pull"—identifying fleet requirements for reducing operations and support costs. The Smart Squadron Project seeks to determine what squadron war fighters need and link it to what scientists can invent. It uses integrated process teams to assess squadron requirements in policy, manpower, infrastructure, information technology, material development, process improvement, support equipment, and autonomic diagnosis. The quality of this effort, however, depends greatly on fleet input. This can provided at the Smart Squadron's website.
The hardest is yet to come. Technology is valuable only if it can be integrated into an organization. A smart squadron prototype is being developed for carrier deployment in 2002. This involves a technical evaluation phase with a reserve squadron and operational evaluation phase with an active squadron. Success depends on a close partnership between scientist and war fighter. They must integrate technologies into concepts and determine what works and what doesn't. This is only the beginning. Getting results to the fleet will require programming and budgeting, and then training personnel.
If naval aviation continues its current operations and maintenance practices, it will only be able to do less with less. To do more with less cannot be an option. The answer lies in using technology to do more. Industry has learned to use it as a force multiplier. So can we. By linking the scientist and war fighter, technology can be infused into the squadron, making it more efficient and effective. It is the only possible choice.
Colonel Watt, a Navy Test Pilot School graduate, served as commanding officer of Cherry Point Naval Aviation Depot and was AV-8B program manager. In January he left the Pennsylvania State University’s Applied Research Laboratory to start his own company, R.L.W., Inc., in State College, Pennsylvania.
Colonel Vaughan, an aviation maintenance officer, headed the Smart Squadron Project in the Aviation Maintenance Program Branch, Chief of Naval Operations, Air Warfare Division.