Assessing Transport Aircraft Inspection Strategies

Abstract

Complex aircraft require periodic maintenance checks to assess needed repairs for continued vehicle availability. However, such checks are expensive and the associated aircraft downtime can reduce fleet mission effectiveness. The United States Air Force plans to consolidate the time-based (isochronal) C-5 aircraft major inspection activities for eight C-5 home stations into three locations. Isochronal inspections rely on a calendar method to schedule inspections and disregard actual flying hours between inspections. By having the same personnel perform these inspections for all flying units and by adopting commercial aircraft condition-based inspection strategies, the Air Force hopes to gain efficiencies in performing these inspections. Conversely, the site phase-out schedule and reduced number of inspection locations raises questions about whether overall C-5 mission capability will be reduced. These proposed revisions were simulated in a designed experiment to assess the impacts to fleet availability and inspection site workload.