28 mai 2024 | International, Aérospatial
The service approved an abbreviated capabilities development document as two competitors move into a prototype flight demo phase for future tactical UAS.
https://www.defensenews.com/land/2024/05/28/us-army-sets-development-plan-for-future-tactical-drone/
18 avril 2024 | International, C4ISR
The service is planning to station its 5th Multidomain Task Force at Fort Liberty, North Carolina, and will complete formation all five MDTF units by FY28.
29 octobre 2018 | International, Aérospatial
By: Jeff Martin The KC-135 refueling tanker and the C-130J airlifter will be the next two aircraft to be part of the Air Force's predictive maintenance program, part of the service's effort to do maintenance before airplanes break--and improve mission capable and availability rates, according to Air Mobility Command's logistics director. "The bottom line is to get to where we are scheduling all of our maintenance, rather than reacting to the maintenance,' said Brig. Gen. Steven Blaymaier, who oversees Air Mobility Command's logistics, engineering and force protection, in an interview at the 2018 Airlift Tanker Association symposium outside Dallas, Texas. “We want our units to achieve their mission-capable rates on a sustained basis.” According to the latest available data, from FY2017, the KC-135 fleet had, on average, a 74 percent mission capable rate, and the C-130J fleet had a 77 percent mission capable rate. As for the rest of the mobility fleet, by that same data, the C-5M fleet stood at 60 percent, the C-130H fleet was at 73 percent, and the C-17 fleet was at 84 percent mission capable. The concept, known as conditions based maintenance, has already been rolled out to the C-5 fleet within AMC, and the B-1 fleet in Air Force Global Strike Command. It uses algorithms based on reams of data to create models to predict when a part might break, rather than waiting for it to fail. Its a standard practice in the commercial aviation industry, and is now making its way into the Air Force. Blaymaier says the KC-135 fleet will join the program in spring of 2019, and the C-130J fleet will follow in the summer. Blaymaier also added that the other aircraft in AMC's fleet would be joining the program eventually, like the C-17 and KC-10. “They're all in work at their program offices right now,” he said. “What we learn from C-5 will be incorporated into the other aircraft.” Blaymaier also said the Air Force was modelling their effort after Delta Airlines's Tech Ops division's procedures, and that the service was at the beginning or “crawl stage” of the process. He also noted that Delta took “eight years” to get achieve the results they were looking for, and that the Air Force was working on that path. In September, Lt. Gen. Robert McMurray, commander of the Air Force Sustainment Center, told Defense News that the conditions-based maintenance program was critical to increasing the readiness of the Air Force's aircraft. "Given the aging fleet situation that we have, we probably need to be using data better to take care of it — which is a drive toward what most everyone right now is saying is the right way to manage fleet sustainment, which is through condition-based maintenance and data analytics,” he said at the time. Another benefit Blaymaier described was that the service will be able to track maintenance needs by individual aircraft, rather than by a general fleet-wide standard. That could reduce time in depots and increase mission capable rates, a top priority of senior Pentagon leaders. “As we move forward with conditions based maintenance plus (CBM+) and predictive analytics, we'll be able to know by tail number which parts are going to fail on certain aircraft," he said."It'll be much more surgical [and] operational." Blaymaier added that while the transition to conditions based maintenance might be a long journey, it would lead to huge benefits for the Air Force. “Ultimately we want to achieve those aircraft availability standards that we established for each of our fleets that are required to meet our wartime taskings,” he said. https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/airlift-tanker-annual/2018/10/27/kc-135s-and-c-130js-are-the-next-aircraft-to-enter-the-air-forces-data-driven-maintenance-program
13 août 2020 | International, Aérospatial
Lee Hudson August 12, 2020 The Pentagon is in the early stages of replacing the troubled Lockheed Martin F-35's autonomous logistics system with a new, cloud-based network, and hopes to get it up and running by the end of 2022. The Operational Data Integrated Network (ODIN) is intended to reduce workload and increase F-35 mission readiness rates by using a smaller, deployable, commercial and cloud-native architecture. Right now, F-35 users operate the Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS) that collects inflight information for maintainers to predict part failures. However, the problem-plagued logistics system has encountered numerous issues that range from directing unnecessary maintenance actions, taking too long to boot up and time-consuming data entry. For example, users told the Government Accountability Office (GAO) that electronic records are frequently corrupt or missing, resulting in ALIS signaling the jet should not fly. This occurs in cases where maintainers know the aircraft is safe for flight. Maintainers at one location told the GAO they experienced as many as 400 issues per week for one six-month period in 2019. The F-35 Joint Program Office (JPO) plans to begin installing hardware this September that can run software from both the legacy and new systems until ODIN is deployed fully. ODIN initial delivery is planned for September 2021. ODIN hardware is designed to have a 75% smaller footprint than the legacy system, and be approximately 94% lighter—50 lb. compared with 891 lb. Another radical difference between the two systems is F-35 prime contractor Lockheed owns ALIS development and the new network is being developed by the JPO. The JPO is using agile software development tools that allow rapid updates and improvements like how Apple updates its iPhones, while Lockheed employs waterfall development that allows for updates every 12-18 months. In January, the JPO hit its first milestone by moving existing F-35 data into a new, integrated environment that will support applications designed by organizations such as Kessel Run, one of the Air Force's software factories. Kessel Run formed a team called Mad Hatter and tasked it to build software applications to render F-35 logistics more user-friendly. A key complaint about ALIS was the lack of realistic operational requirements. In other words, user needs can become outdated. To address this shortcoming, the JPO partner nations agreed in January to update a requirements document for ODIN annually—if needed. Instead of crafting a rigid requirements document that will be outdated in 10 years, the new strategy calls for updating protocols based on reality, according to a program office maintenance systems expert. This strategy complies with the software acquisition policy of Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Ellen Lord. It calls for the users, developers and software designers to come together and produce a customer-centric design as development progresses. The requirements document features six capability needs: deployment planning and execution; unit maintenance planning; sortie generation; sustainment readiness; information management, and ODIN support. The document also includes 43 performance measurements that the JPO will use as metrics to track ODIN development. Beyond better programmatic planning, the Pentagon is facing a considerable obstacle as it transitions from ALIS to ODIN. The JPO is having trouble receiving technical data from Lockheed, Lord told the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. “While the department recognizes industry's interest in protecting intellectual property, there is technical data that the department has rights to and needs in order to enable effective organic sustainment,” Lord noted in written testimony submitted to the committee. In response to Lord's comments, Lockheed noted the company does not own all the logistics system's intellectual-property and data rights. “ALIS software is also government-owned, per contract requirements with Lockheed, and our suppliers retaining intellectual property and data rights to portions of software that were developed using industry's investment funds is in accordance with the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulations Supplement,” Lockheed spokesman Brett Ashworth tells Aviation Week. The Pentagon's overarching goal is to drive down F-35 sustainment pricing, which is where most of a program's cost resides. The government is still upgrading ALIS, an effort known as ALIS Next, before ODIN comes online to manage costs. ALIS Next consists of more regular software updates, instead of the program's current 12-18 month cycle. An updated version of ALIS, known as 3.5, is outfitted with 300 stability fixes, says F-35 Program Executive Officer Lt. Gen. Eric Fick. Air Force software developers and Lockheed Martin personnel are simultaneously continuing to issue ALIS software patches. ALIS Next provides an opportunity to reduce the amount of administrative personnel needed to support the logistics system's operations in the field. An important step to lowering the overall F-35 sustainment price is reducing the cost per flying hour. The goal is for the F-35A conventional takeoff and landing jet, the most popular variant, was $25,000 by 2025. “We are confident $25,000 is attainable, but it will require collaboration with the JPO, services, allies and our industry partners to reduce overall cost,” Lockheed F-35 Vice President and General Manager Greg Ulmer submitted in written testimony to the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. Over the past five years, the company has reduced a portion of the F-35's operations and sustainment costs by 38%. Lockheed is responsible for 39% of all F-35 sustainment costs, according to Ulmer. The company estimates it will drive down controlled cost another 50% in the next five years, and it is working with the government to achieve similar savings on the remaining 61% of flight-hour costs that are under the purview of the Defense Department and propulsion suppliers. Although in its infancy, ODIN is set to be the cornerstone for the next major wave of F-35 sustainment improvements over the next two years as ALIS is retired. https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/aircraft-propulsion/pentagon-rethinks-troubled-f-35-logistics-system