US Military Aviation Readiness Report-Bad News!

[SASless]

The US GAO released a Report on the Readiness Statistics for Forty-Nine different Aircraft Types operated by the US DOD.....and it does not paint a pretty picture.

The Link will take you to a very brief summary but also provides a method to view the full Report.

For Info Geeks who are interested in the full Report (300 plus pages) there is a button to click on that will take you to the full report.


https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-23-106217

[Big Pistons Forever]

Just like the Canadian Armed Forces, there is never time or money to do maintenance right, but there always seems to be time and money to do maintenance over. As a Sub Lieutenant ships navigator I put in a Unsatisfactory Condition Report on a ships depth sounder because of its poor MTBF and high repair costs with a recommendation that it be replaced with a more modern and reliable unit. When I was promoted Lieutenant Commander and a given a ships command appointment, the same unit was still in place, extremely unreliable and still sucking up repair dollars :ugh::*

[SASless]

Different funding accounts...different account managers....and transients passing through on rotation with no one. person accountable for squat!

I attended a Navy Supply Officer course at the University of Gerogia.....with a focus upon Fraud, Waste, and Abuse issues.....taught by a US Navy Supply Officer.

As the class was made up of Criminal Investigators specializing in those crimes.....it was interesting.

This back during the days of the 400 Dollar hammers and 1,000 Dollar Toilet seats time frame.

When it got to "Hammers" the explanation was said "Hammer" was part of the F/A-17 Contract, was part of the many Line Items on the Contract and due to Overhead and Administrative Costs being applied to each Line Item in an equal amount.....that explained the high cost of the "Hammer".

When asked exactly what did said "hammer" actually cost.....we received a blank stare and some stutters.....and finally....."We don't know and have no way to find out!".

As I looked at the Contract entry for the "hammer" it read something like, "Device, Impact, Manually Operated".

Having a Federal National Supply Agency (NSA) catalog.....think Amazon in a printed catalog format......and when I opined that out of the hundred plus different hammers it contained with certain prices for each one of them....there was no entry for "Device, Impact, Manually Operated" in the Catalog.

When the follow up question was asked....."Now why would that be you wonder?".....his defense of the Navy procurement system ran up on the rocks of reality.....and the discussion was turned to other topics very quickly.

Similar concept.....huge amounts of money....poorly written contracts....revolving door between Government Officials and Officers going to the civilian industry....and Old Ike's warnings are proven to quite correct.

[tucumseh]

Big Pistons, SASLess

If your DoDs are anything like UK MoD, there will be a mandated set of instructions and procedures on how to avoid such problems. They tell you exactly who is meant to do it, and how; and delegate authority to overrule (in old money) Long Term Costings policy by using engineering judgment. A unique delegation, to a grade that is so low there are none in the procurement organisation.

The posts were disbanded in April 1988. In the Royal Navy there were four covering all avionics. Each was paid about £10k per annum. If they failed to save tens of millions, each, every year, questions were asked at God level. Or, at least, First Sea Lord. (Not sure what the First Landlord or Lord of the Flies did). They didn't catch every problem, but they sure as hell paid for themselves. It was one of them that identified the endorsed requirement to purchase active dipping sonar kit for RAF C-130. For some reason, it never quite got to the hovering trials stage. Which kind of answers a question on another of today's threads...

[NutLoose]

I remember the toilet valve balls that the RAF were purchasing from waste of space at something like £80 a pop, they came individually packed in a box etc, but one time the RAF ordered several and the packer left them in their original packaging inside the box… Squash balls! Apparently.

[Lonewolf_50]

Different funding accounts...different account managers....and transients passing through on rotation with no one. person accountable for squat!
You may be interested to know that a great many things that were once Mil Spec are now procured under Commercial Standards. It's taken a long time to get there.
But, cockups still happen, go look at the CH-47 Engine Fire thread of recent days / weeks and see how someone can still install the wrong part under "the same/correct NSN."
Used to happen to me in the 80's when I was flying SH-2Fs. Right NSN, wrong part. That still needs work.

[SASless]

I saw the BOSS Program kick off (Buy Our Spares Smart)....and it saved a load of money but was still just a bandaid over a Cancer.

NIS (Now NCIS) ramped up it efforts to combat fraud....DCIS was created at the DOD level and originally was only doing Fraud Cases.....and that helped.

What was nearly impossible to get under control was genuinely poor contract writing and the negative effect lobbying and politics played in so many of the decisions.

I did work on the Cruise Missile Program and what we found was not criminal acts but actions taken to meet the IOC Date set. by President Reagan for use in negotiations with the Russians.

It is a complex situation that cannot be resolved with easy..simple...direct actions.

Navy ship building programs were bread and butter cases for us....with the never ending Horn of Plenty spewing money to Contractors over Change Orders was the undoing of most of our cases.

We did have some successes....one being very. rewarding for a fellow caught falsifying test reports for certification of metal used in Submarine Construction.

The Federal Judge was sensitive to the matter in that he had nephew serving aboard a Sub....which provided a human connection to the dangers such false certifications caused for Sub Crews.

The real cost to the government comes from over spec'ing, bad contracting, and just buying things that are not needed or are obsolete.

[BEagle]

Those classic lines from Independence Day on visiting Area 51:

President Whitmore: I don't understand, where does all this come from? How do you get funding for something like this?

Julius Levinson: You don't actually think they spend $20000 on a hammer, $30000 on a toilet seat, do you?

[lightonthewater]

Back in the day, as a UK based shipbroker, one of my clients was the US military. This regular job was to charter European civilian coastal vessels to lighter 'sensitive' cargo from large US military ships into small European ports. Although requiring tight schedules and suitably equipped ships, the process was usually relatively straightforward, but as the US military personnel involved rotated every 6 - 12 months, we had to teach them the process anew each time. On the most memorable occasion, the American man in charge decided that he knew better, and they didn't need our help or civilian ships at all: the US could do it all. So, they brought a US military ship all the way from the eastern mediterranean to Europe (empty, of course). It got there late, and turned out to be too big to get into the small port it was intended to enter. So we ended up having to find suitably equipped civilian coastal vessels for them at short notice at great much greater expense, and the cargo delivery was delayed by some 10 days.

[Lonewolf_50]

I would like to repeat for emphasis something SASless pointed out, which I have run into a variety of times.
What was nearly impossible to get under control was genuinely poor contract writing and the negative effect lobbying and politics played in so many of the decisions. The number of times that created a bigger mess in my own humble experience (and I was not on BIG programs like JSF or Carriers or SSN Virginia) was substantial. Infamous quote as regards the T-45C upgrade some years ago: "Trent Lott's position is that aircraft do not have bureau numbers, but zip codes" (and in this case, the zip code was in northern Mississippi ...)