Air Force Steps Up Effort To Care for Its Aging Aircraft.

Some of the B-52 long-range bombers that so relentlessly pounded Taliban and al Qaeda fortifications in Afghanistan are more than 40 years old, and the U.S. Air Force plans to keep flying them for another four decades. If they do, officials said, it will be like bombing Osama bin Laden with aircraft built by the Wright brothers.

The Air Force knows that it has problems with aging aircraft, and it is seeking new solutions for them. "We have 6,300 aircraft, and they're all aging," said Col. Rosanne Bailey, director of the service's new Aging Aircraft System Program Office, at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, in Ohio. Bailey is scheduled for promotion to brigadier general later this month. The Aging Aircraft SPO was established in 2001 as a wing-level organization, within the Aeronautical Systems Center, to develop and implement a comprehensive modernization plan for the Air Force's fleet of planes, she said.

The average Air Force aircraft is more than 22 years old, Lt. Gen. Michael Zettler, deputy chief of staff for installations and logistics, told a recent Pentagon news briefing. The average age will continue to rise, he said, even if the service is able to acquire new generations of platforms, such as the F-22 air dominance fighter and F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. "If we buy all the aircraft that are in our future years defense plan, the average age will grow to 30 by 2015."

The older an aircraft, the more difficult and expensive it is to maintain, the Air Force Chief of Staff, Gen. John P. Jumper, told a DFI International seminar in Washington, D.C.

"We have more than 100 Boeing 707 platforms right now at our logistics facility at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma, just for corrosion and aging aircraft problems," he said. "Those airplanes that used to spend four or five months in depot status are now spending upwards of a year in depot status, just because of the aging problem." Jumper said he would like to replace the B-707s with B-767s.

The age factor affects all categories of aircraft in the Air Force fleet, officials said. They cited these examples:

* B-52s, which flew thousands of miles from the British island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean to hit Taliban and al Qaeda fortifications, first deployed in 1955.

* C-130 Hercules transports, which dropped U.S. special operations forces into Taliban-controlled territory, began service in 1956.

* KC-135 Stratotankers, whose refueling capabilities enabled U.S. long-range bombers to reach their targets and return safely to their bases, joined the Air Force in that same year.

* UH-1 Huey helicopters, still widely used for search and rescue, troop airlifts, medical evacuation and security surveillance, began deployment in 1970.

* F-15 Eagle tactical fighters, which also struck enemy targets in Afghanistan, were introduced in 1972.

During the Cold War--when some of these aircraft were designed--nobody gave much thought to the problem of aging aircraft, said Bailey. Back then, airplanes were expected to last about 20 years, she said.

When something went wrong, you fixed it as simply and quickly as possible, she said. And when the aircraft reached the end of its service life, you retired it and sent it to the aircraft "bone yard"--the Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Center at DavisMonthan Air Force Base, near Tucson, Ariz.

Off to the 'Bone Yard'

As the name suggests, the "bone yard" stores and recycles retired U.S. military aircraft. At last count, its inventory included 4,600 Air Force, Army, Coast Guard, Navy and Marine Corps aircraft of all types, lined up in row after row on dusty tarmac. Some are used for parts. Others are sold to U.S. allies.

Approximately 365 B-52s were dismantled during a three-and-a-half-year period to comply with the conditions of the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union, officials said. The bombers were destroyed, using a 13,000-pound guillotine blade to sever fuselages.

Since the end of the Cold War, few new aircraft have been ordered. And of those that were purchased, procurements were sometimes reduced. For example, the Air Force originally planned to buy more than 100 stealthy B-2 Spirit bombers, but ended up ordering only 21. They were delivered between 1993 and 1999.

As a result, the Air Force is forced to keep its existing fleet of aircraft much longer than first anticipated. The challenge, Bailey said, is to "keep them flying and to keep them relevant."

That's not an easy task, officials said. As aircraft age, they begin to encounter, in varying degrees, & fatigue cracking, corrosion and wear, Gen. Michael E. Ryan, the previous Air Force chief of staff; told the House Armed Services Committee. At the same time, he said, "the industrial base that supports older aircraft is drying up, as aerospace companies leave niche markets--particularly in electronics, where commercial systems have long ago abandoned technology still in use in the Air Force." As a result, spate parts are becoming increasingly difficult to find, particularly for older platforms.

Since 1997, the Air Force has taken a number of steps to address this problem, Ryan said. "First, we have fully funded 'depot-level repairables' accounts, which are used by operating units to 'buy' spare parts from Defense Department and Air Force sources," he explained.

"Second," Ryan said, "we increased inventory levels of critical spares by the obligation of certain working capital funds, and we are programming budget authority to pay for these spares as they are delivered.

"Third, we are working to consolidate Air Force depots and to malce the parts system more efficient, to keep down the costs of spare parts ...

"Fourth, we are modernizing critical subsystems in our older aircraft, where it is no longer cost effective to make repairs on individual components, or where manufacturing sources for component repair are no longer available." Some examples:

* The B-52 is getting an avionics midlife-improvement program to upgrade its offensive electronics system, which is based on 1970s technology and suffering from obsolescence and supportability problems.

* The gigantic C-5 Galaxy transport, which debuted in 1969, also is receiving new avionics. In addition, a comprehensive re-engining and reliability improvement program is replacing C-5 engines, pylons and auxiliary power units and upgrading aircraft skin, frame, landing gear and the pressurization system.

* The F-16 Fighting Falcon and the A-10 Warthog fighters--both deployed more than two decades ago--are the focus of service-life extension programs, upgrading their avionics and structures.

* Under the so-called, Cupid program, older F-16s are getting night-vision equipment and the ability to carry an infrared targeting pod and laser-guided munitions. Ultimately, they will have the capability to carry joint direct-action munitions and other global-positioning-system-guided weapons.

* The A-10 Hog Up program will inspect, repair and overhaul many structural and mechanical systems, the beginning of an effort to keep the Warthog flying until 2028.

* Of the original KC-l35As, more than 410 have been modified with new CFM-56 engines. The re-engined tanker--designated either the KC-135 R or KC-135T--can offload 50 percent more fuel, is 25 percent more fuel efficient, costs 25 percent less to operate and is 96 percent quieter than the KC135A, according to the Air Force.

To modernize the 17-year-old B-1 Lancer long-range bomber, the Pentagon wants reduce their numbers by a third, from 93 to 60. The estimated $165 million in savings would be used to upgrade the remaining aircraft, Air Force Secretary James G. Roche told a Senate armed services subcommittee.

Low Mission-Capable Rates

"The B-1 aircraft's mission-capable rates have remained between 51 and 62 percent during fiscal year 2000 and fiscal year 2001," he said. The Air Force plans to use the savings "to modernize the B-1's precision weaponry, self-protection systems and combat reliability," Roche said.

The Air Force plan would involve shutting down an Air Force B-1 wing in Idaho and Air National Guard units in Georgia and Kansas, which quickly raised objections on Capitol Hill.

The Northrop Grumman Corporation has proposed building 40 new B-2 bombers over the next decade at a cost of $29.5 billion. That would bring down the average cost per aircraft from more than $1 billion to $545 million in fiscal year 2000 dollars, according to Northrop Grumman spokesman Jim Hart.

Roche, however, is not interested. He would prefer, he said, to spend that money on a wide array of Air Force needs, including upgrades for the existing B-2 fleet, which has a 20-year-old design.

"Modernizing the B-2's stealth technology will improve its maintainability by 8 percent," he said. "And the B-2 requires significant upgrades to cockpit displays and in-flight replanning tools before we can fully capitalize on the tremendous advances inherent in our new precision-guided weapons."

The Aging Aircraft SPO was stood up to coordinate the Air Force's efforts to modernize its fleet, explained Col. Michael R. Carpenter, chief of the SPO's Aging Aircraft Planning Division. The SPO--which has about 250 people--has three major thrusts, Carpenter said.

First, he said, the office is focusing its efforts on the "ilities"--such as reliability and maintainability--that are affected by aging, he said.

Second, Carpenter noted, the SPO is encouraging more sharing of technologies and solutions among the air logistics centers, product centers and system program offices.

Third, Carpenter explained, the office is supporting "cross-cutting" programs that affect several platforms. Some examples: The Large Aircraft Infrared Countermeasure program is used as a defensive system on C-17, C-130 and C-141 aircraft. The Common Low Observable Verification System is employed for a number of stealth aircraft. And the Joint Ejection Seat Program affects several current Air Force platforms.

To accomplish its mission, the SPO works with other ASC units, such as the Propulsion Development System Office and the Training Systems Product Group, on projects such as the Engine Structural Integrity Program at Tinker Air Force Base, in Oklahoma.

The SPO cooperates with the Air Force Research Laboratory, based at Wright-Patterson, to develop new technologies to improve availability and affordability of aging systems, Carpenter said. One solution that the lab has developed is known as the Mobile Automated Scanner (MAUS) IV. The MAUS--pronounced "mouse"--is designed to detect aircraft corrosion, fatigue cracks and other problems associated with aging, Carpenter said.

"Without raking the skins off the aircraft, MAUS can 'look' inside to see if there is corrosion and how extensive it is, so we can determine if it's safe to fly or has to be fixed right away," he said.