| ID | 135620 |
| Title Proper | Flying the fleet |
| Other Title Information | aircraft maintainability is shifting from spares and support to guaranteed availability on the flight line |
| Language | ENG |
| Author | Chandra, Atul |
| Summary / Abstract (Note) | A key improvement that has taken place across some of the newest acquisitions by the Indian Air Force (IAF) and Indian Navy (IN) has been the substantially improved aircraft on tarmac availability.
The biggest change has been the willingness of both services to pay for Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) maintenance and service support packages which guarantee aircraft readiness rates instead of merely providing the required spares and maintenance support. Such an approach also allows the economies of scale to be leveraged across a worldwide spares support base and clear forecasting of spares requirements based on the manufacturer and user data. This is a far cry from the Eighties and Nineties when brand new aircraft inducted from the erstwhile Soviet Union had poor flight line availability, with the manufacturers not being held accountable for significant shortfalls in aircraft reliability and excessive consumption of spare parts. |
| `In' analytical Note | Force Vol.12, No.2; Oct.2014: p.28-30 |
| Journal Source | Force 2014-10 12, 2 |
| Standard Number | Defence Economy |