APPARENTLY, THE USAF DON'T HAVE PROBLEMS WITH AGING AIRCRAFT
So dont bother reading on......
ftp.rta.nato.int/public//PubFullText/RTO/MP/RTO-MP-079(II)/MP-079(II)-(SM)-$KN.pdf -
Managing the Aging Aircraft Problem
John W. Lincoln
Aeronautical Systems Center
2530 Loop Road West
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio 45433-7101
USA
No one should be surprised there are aircraft all over the world today in a state of aging. Economic considerations demand that aircraft be operated long beyond originally identified retirement times. One reason for keeping aircraft in the inventory is that technological advances allow currently designed aircraft to effectively perform their mission for much longer than
previously possible. An aircraft, even when sold by one airline, sees extended life in another airline’s operations. In the commercial sector, new aircraft tend to be evolutionary in their designs. Consequently, they are maintained in service until they are not economically viable to
operate. The cost of new aircraft, particularly for the military, is enormous. Each new military aircraft is a revolutionary change from the previous model since the services must maintain combat effectiveness in an environment of ever-changing threats. Therefore, military aircraft stay in the inventory until they are operationally obsolete or they are no longer economically viable to operate. The USAF retired many F-4 aircraft because they were obsolete as a weapon system rather than being economically nonviable. In the case of the KC-135, the USAF plans to keep
these aircraft operational to the year 2040 since they believe it will be economical to operate them until that time. They would likely not be obsolete in the year 2040. If the USAF can maintain these aircraft operationally until 2040, their service life will be approximately 80 years. When the USAF procured these aircraft, they planned for a service life of about 20 years.
However, the economic demand to fly these aircraft longer and longer has emphasized the need to re-examine these aircraft for the possibility of WFD, corrosion damage, and loss of damage
tolerance capability through repairs. In many cases, the budgets have not allowed the modernization of maintenance facilities or the
upgrading of their information management systems. This has led to maintenance practices that are not state-of-the-art in that the use of information management has not become ingrained in the
work force.