The Pentagon needs a new game plan for dealing with aging avionics
in its aircraft fleet, experts said. A study, just published by
the Air Force Science and Technology Board and sponsored by the
National Research Council (NRC), urged the Defense Department to
both pump more dollars into avionics upgrades and to set clear guidelines
for how aircraft should be upgraded in order to keep up with fast-moving
information technologies.
“There is a mismatch between the time that we keep our military
equipment and the refresh cycle that we have for electronics technology
today,” said Noel Longuemare, vice chair of the board’s
committee on aging avionics in military aircraft, which authored
the study. “Instead of lasting for 30 years, it takes 18 months
to three years until it turns around, and that is a fundamental
mismatch. Many of the things that keep these systems running are
not available anymore.”
The long development cycles of military weapon systems mean that,
by the time it is procured, a new aircraft could be technologically
obsolete, said Bill Dane, an aircraft analyst with Forecast International
DMS. He said that, increasingly, electronics in military aircraft
need to be updated often, in order to meet new threats. “Missiles
get more sophisticated, so the aircraft have to become more sophisticated.”
For the Air Force F-22 Raptor air-superiority fighter, which began
to be developed about 20 years ago, $50 million a year is budgeted
to replace old avionics with new hardware and software. The NRC
report said that, by the time the first production F-22 rolls off
the line, its avionics systems will have undergone four technology
refresh cycles.
The average age of U.S. military aircraft is 20 years and on the
rise, because of the low replacement rate, according to the report.
During the 1990s, the mission capability of U.S. aircraft declined
from 83 percent to 73 percent.
“If we continue to modernize at the current rate, statistics
show that in 2015, approximately 25 percent of the equipment, such
as planes and trucks, will be new, and 75 percent will be old,”
said Longuemare. “To me, that is a rather shocking number.
In 15 years, the things we’ll have will be old.”
The Air Force estimates that it would need up to $ 275 million
more per year to deal with the aging avionics problem. The NRC panel
concluded that another $5 billion needs to be added beyond 2005,
just to complete the upgrades approved in the 2001 president’s
budget request.
Because money is tight in the Air Force, one of the main recommendations
of the advisory panel is to implement a so-called modular open-system
approach (MOSA), already used in the commercial aircraft industry.
“Most of these industries are gravitating towards families
of modular products, so that they can take one of the basic designs,
use a core capability and then tailor that to each customer and
application without starting design from scratch,” said Longuemare.
With a modular, open-architecture approach, a lot less hardware
will need to be replaced in the future, said Dane. “You can
replace one module and find a new one, rather than replace the entire
system.”
In the 1980s, the electronics for military aircraft were built
independently. Therefore, “if you make a change in one area,
it is difficult to see what you are changing in other areas,”
said Longuemare. “You have a big problem verifying whether
the systems are working as they should be.”
Bob Gabel, director of marketing at Rockwell Collins, said that
open-system architecture is driving the aircraft market to use much
more software. “If technology becomes more software driven,
I can stick a disk in my airplane and update and insert technology
at a quicker pace,” he said. “I can insert a new map,
and I don’t have to redo the whole system.”
“If you have the basic framework, the idea is that, as there
are improvements, you can easily take out the old and put in the
new and that will be integrated through software,” said Greg
Bricker, director of C-5 airlift requirements at Lockheed Martin.
“You can take out a radio and it will be able to function
immediately with some code changes.”
The Air Force C-5 heavy-lift cargo airplanes currently are undergoing
a major avionics upgrade.
The NRC panel concluded that the use of modular, open-structured
avionics would allow the Defense Department to solicit competitive
bids from suppliers at the component level, circuit board level,
the module level, or the subsystem level. Therefore, the panel recommended
that the Air Force require a modular, open-system design strategy
for all new programs and upgrades. A training program in MOSA concepts
also should be included for program managers, acquisition personnel
and support personnel, the panel said.
“Overall, [MOSA] saves a lot of money. But there is a catch,”
said Longuemare. “Many of the older systems are not designed
for this, and there will be some front-end costs to redesign and
accommodate this new architecture.” The NRC said that MOSA
would save money in the long run, but would generally cost more
than customized point solutions in the short term.
Generally, Dane said, it is cheaper to upgrade the avionics than
to buy new aircraft. However, some aircraft cannot be upgraded anymore,
because the airframes ran out of service life. “In the future,
they will have to juggle the priorities,” he said. “But
at the same time, they have to continue to modernize the aircraft
that the new aircraft cannot replace.
“The procurement people and the avionics upgrade people are
going to be continually competing for the same funds,” Dane
noted.
The Air Force must maintain an inventory of approximately 6,000
planes to sustain 195 active wings. For the past five years, the
report said, the average annual procurement of new aircraft has
been about 25. “If this low rate of procurement continues,
the U.S. Air Force will turn over its aircraft inventory every 240
years,” the report said.
A Defense Department study released last year, titled, “Product
Support for the 21st century: A Year Later,” noted that the
department spends $62 billion a year to support and maintain its
equipment. In 1999, the Air Force spent about $3 billion for depot-level
repairs of its aircraft and $1 billion went to the support and maintenance
of avionics systems.
The Air Force is turning to contractors to do most upgrade work.
“The cost is going to be very high, not only in dollars, but
also in the availability and readiness of the aircraft,” said
Longuemare.
“I can spend less money to fix today’s problem, but
I will spend that money over and over again as we go into the future,”
said Gabel, whose company has just received a $25 million award
to upgrade the Greek Air Force fleet of C-130 tactical transport
airplanes during the next three years.
“The support of the aircraft is 80 percent of the cost for
the next 20 years,” Gabel said.
The existing C-130s, he said, have many obsolete parts, radio instruments
and auto-pilots, some up to 20 years old. “The reliability
is low, as well as the functionality which is not as crisp as it
could be today,” Gabel noted. The Greek fleet has five C-130B
models and 10 C-130H models. Rockwell Collins will work on the flight
management system, displays, autopilot, weather radar, TCAS (Traffic
Alert Collision Avoidance System) and radio communications/navigation
equipment.
The U.S. Air Force still has some E models, but most of the fleet
consists of H models. “Because the mission is not changing
for the C-130, the Air Force has quite a smattering of types and
the logistics trails were huge,” Gabel said. The U.S. Air
Force recently awarded the Boeing Co. a $4 billion contract to upgrade
its C-130 fleet.
Lockheed Martin Corp. is working on the avionics modernization
program for the C-5. The company is providing a digital automatic
flight control system, integrating flat panel liquid crystal displays
and navigation precision equipment, based on the Global Positioning
System (GPS). The company also is upgrading the communications systems,
adding new capabilities for connectivity and data links. An enhanced
ground-proximity warning system and a traffic alert-and-collision
avoidance system also are part of the C-5 upgrade program.
Bricker said that the basic premise of the program is to cut development
efforts by using off-the-shelf equipment that meets the GATM requirements.
GATM is the Global Air Traffic Management (GATM) agency that regulates
safety requirements for communication, navigation and surveillance.
The C-5 upgrade program will cost more than $450 million and is
expected to be completed by October 2006. nd