The crisis in aircraft maintenance

Recently the Secretary of Defense James Mattis sent a memorandum to the service secretaries

directing certain fighter airframes meet a readiness standard of 80%. It's a good goal to set and I think it's achievable. However Mattis went on to direct this goal to be achieved by the end of FY19 [Oct 2019]. To reach this goal in a year will have catastrophic effects on the aircraft maintenance community.

First, fighter MC rates have been declining for more than a decade. There is a natural, inevitable decline as a fleet gets older.  On top of fleet age,

Graphic courtesy of the Air Force Times

avionics upgrades increase system complexity in 4th generation airframes. Those upgrades, while useful for combat capability, also increase time spent in maintenance. Additionally, sequestration and the 'across the board' cuts to all budgets created a ripple effect manifested as a shortage of parts, experience, personnel and sorties.

It seems fairly evident that as operational funds dried up, money for parts went with it. However, it's much worse than just a part shortage. Being starved for parts affects production decisions in a materially unhealthy way. Managers look for solutions to part 'holes' in aircraft in order to prepare them for the next day. They will cannibalize[CANN] serviceable parts from a designated aircraft. In the frequent event the designated aircraft lacks the desired part, managers will direct CANNs to any non-mission capable[NMC] aircraft. This creates double work for technicians. As instead of just working the single, broke aircraft they are actually removing and replacing the faulty part twice. This double work fuels my next point.

Experienced personnel get worn out by constant duplicate or 'proactive' maintenance[caveat: I have been known to do 'pre-emptive' maintenance and I didn't always make the right call, thus I am also to blame here]. The more supply can't meet the demands of the fleet, the more CANN actions happen. As sequestration and the degrading loop of budgetary continuing resolutions marched on, our most experienced personnel voted with their feet and simply left the services, leaving the inexperienced behind.

On top of the increased attrition of experienced maintainers by the crushing ops tempo and supply shortages, the Air Force [among other services] elected to slash almost 20,000 Airmen in 2014, shrinking the Air Force to it's smallest since it's creation.

Sequestration also hampered non-mission critical sorties causing aircrew skills to atrophy. This scarcity of sorties forced operations to make some hard decisions; decisions they likely have never had to make before. They had to differentiate between wants and needs. What is the bare minimum required to sustain operations?

For the first time, the Air Force was poor. Poor in every aspect of sortie generation.

This poverty is likely one of the many drivers of the fighter pilot exodus of the last 10 years. If I had to hazard a guess [as a lowly maintainer] the poverty only exposed the toxicity of careerism in the aviator ranks.

In the memorandum, Mattis suggests commercial aviation can observe military aviation processes and provide input. I'm sure there are some lean initiatives that can be applied cross-culturally; the reality is that the dynamic aerospace environment of the military is vastly different from the civilian sector. G forces, weapon systems, ejections systems, radar threat warning; the list goes on and on. Do we ask the local Chevy dealership to help us flow our Abram tank maintenance? No, its apples to oranges; much like flowing F-16 maintenance like a 747.

I did contract maintenance in the 21st AMU briefly in the spring and summer of 2018. We regularly maintained a 85%+ MC rate. Normally our only unavailable aircraft was our phase bird. The jets we were working were 20+ years old, but in reality their airframes were closer to 30+ years old. Does this mean the active force can achieve similar results?

No. For one, the 21st AMU is a Taiwanese outfit. Meaning they weren't affected by sequestration. Second, the experience of the maintainers in the 21st AMU is more than a 15 year average. That's an average! You won't find an active duty unit with anywhere close to the same for airframe experience. Finally, the jets were simply less complex than their active counterparts. All of these factors allowed them to succeed where the active duty faltered. We can't miracle these types of variables into an active unit. Again, it's an apples to oranges comparison.

But the most critical error of this mandate is Secretary Mattis is operating from the assumption that military leadership is in a healthy state.

It clearly is not. [and not, and not, and not]

Maintenance leadership is plagued by the same careerist rot we see in other career fields and other branches. We have created an environment that rewards leaders that avoid risk, and in so doing, avoid making tough decisions. We reward yes men and cowards with promotion. We ignore toxic climates for our people because the only metric that matters is productivity.

We worship these metrics to the detriment of quality, and then demand the highest quality from our people and blame them for cutting corners to meet the previously championed production goals.

Aircraft maintenance in it's current state, and more importantly at it's current resources [parts, time, manpower, experience] falls gravely short of meeting the standards of excellence espoused in all of our services core principles. We have gotten here because the only thing that has mattered for the last 10 years is producing sorties, regardless of the quality of the maintenance that went into those sorties.

Sure, we have QA, and yearly inspections [Whats the flavor of the week now? CUI? GUI? UCI, ORI, LCAP?] but those don't actually represent the real maintenance environment. And now demanding readiness will absolutely ensure our jets are at their most dangerous state. A state of the lowest quality for the sake of perceived 'readiness.'

The services will fail to meet this mandate. But those protecting their careers will use every manipulation at their disposal to try and meet it.

Because failure is not an option. Regardless of the resources provided, every military member is indoctrinated into the idea that failure of the unit, failure of the mission is a personal failure.

So the lowest level people will quite literally kill themselves in order to support this ridiculous mandate. Aircraft maintenance can not be satiated, it is always hungry for more work. With this mandate, toxic leaders will feed their personnel to the maintenance grinder until there are no more personnel worth feeding. The people will forego medical appointments, working out or family commitments. And when they fail a PT test or their marriage collapses due to their absence, those charged with caring for them will cast them aside as bad airmen; incapable of maintaining their fitness or finances.

The most experienced will get burnt out, leaving once again, a galactic experience gap in the maintenance ranks that can't be shored up in time before the next out of touch mandate comes from the powers that be.

I'd like to think Secretary Mattis has directed this increase in readiness because he has the foresight to know we as a country will soon need those capabilities. Perhaps he knows the 80% isn't attainable but setting the bar high will ensure our failure to reach it still lands far higher than we would've gotten without it.

My concern is that Secretary Mattis is out of touch with the field due to his position. That the yes men below him, jockeying for position in their own careers, are unwilling to communicate how dire the situation is in maintenance.

The memorandum reads as if maintenance is capable to reach 80%, but we have just gone too easy on them and it's time they pull their weight. After serving 20 years in aircraft maintenance, I assure you these men and women in aircraft maintenance are performing daily miracles just to keep their heads above water.

I hope and pray that I am wrong, but I don't think I am.

Check out the follow up article located here.

If you're in aircraft maintenance, please tell me what you think of this mandate in the comments below. Also follow 20 Years Done on Facebook for more discussions and updates.