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I don’t think you should conflate wartime vs peacetime maintenance. At peacetime you aren’t ok with 1 or .1% of flights needing to come in for an emergency land

I don’t think you should conflate wartime vs peacetime maintenance. At peacetime you aren’t ok with 1 or .1% of flights needing to come in for an emergency landing due to some part flaking out. During training you want as close to 100% reliability as possible.

mrweasel 3y ago
I'm not in the military, never was, but I'd expect better performance in war time. You can tolerate a much much higher failure rate during peace time. It doesn't matter much if a training mission is aborted, the consequences are much lower.
- selectodude 3y ago
  Generally the things that pull the plane off the line aren't things that make them non-flightworthy. They'd be sending these planes on sorties if it wasn't peacetime.
  - warner25 3y ago
    This cuts both ways. A lot more things need to be online in combat: avionics, sensors, weapons, survivability equipment, etc. At home, it didn't matter if the IFF transponder or satellite radio wasn't working. We didn't even have survivability equipment installed. In combat, though, any of those things makes an aircraft non-mission capable.
- hylaride 3y ago
  In peacetime you can ground your entire fleet of a type of aircraft when an issue is discovered (as has been done for almost every model of military plane flying at some point). In wartime you don't have that luxury and you need to go, go, go. If there was a war, none of the following groundings would have happened even if a very serious issue was discovered: * https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-f156nov06-story.html https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-f156nov06-story.html * https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2016/12/17/all-navy-f-a-18-e-f-super-hornets-growlers-grounded-after-incident-injuring-aircrew/ https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2016/12/17/all-navy... * https://www.airforce-technology.com/news/newsusaf-f-22-raptor-grounding-due-to-suspected-toxins-says-report/ https://www.airforce-technology.com/news/newsusaf-f-22-rapto... * https://www.forbes.com/sites/edwardsegal/2023/04/29/armys-decision-to-ground-apache-helicopters-provides-key-crisis-management-lessons/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/edwardsegal/2023/04/29/armys-de...
warner25 3y ago
Yes, there are big differences between wartime and peacetime operational tempo and maintenance capacity. I flew and managed maintenance for Black Hawks, and while deployed to Afghanistan or Iraq we flew multiples of the hours that we'd fly at home. While deployed, we ran 24-7 maintenance. We had contract maintenance support to probably triple our organic capacity. We had first priority for getting parts, and we had freedom to stockpile parts or do "controlled exchange" (i.e. cannibalize other aircraft for parts) which we couldn't do at home. One outcome is that we effectively wore out the fleet a decade or two faster than planned.

mrweasel 3y ago

I'm not in the military, never was, but I'd expect better performance in war time. You can tolerate a much much higher failure rate during peace time. It doesn't matter much if a training mission is aborted, the consequences are much lower.

selectodude 3y ago
Generally the things that pull the plane off the line aren't things that make them non-flightworthy. They'd be sending these planes on sorties if it wasn't peacetime.
- warner25 3y ago
  This cuts both ways. A lot more things need to be online in combat: avionics, sensors, weapons, survivability equipment, etc. At home, it didn't matter if the IFF transponder or satellite radio wasn't working. We didn't even have survivability equipment installed. In combat, though, any of those things makes an aircraft non-mission capable.
hylaride 3y ago
In peacetime you can ground your entire fleet of a type of aircraft when an issue is discovered (as has been done for almost every model of military plane flying at some point). In wartime you don't have that luxury and you need to go, go, go. If there was a war, none of the following groundings would have happened even if a very serious issue was discovered: * https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-f156nov06-story.html https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-f156nov06-story.html * https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2016/12/17/all-navy-f-a-18-e-f-super-hornets-growlers-grounded-after-incident-injuring-aircrew/ https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2016/12/17/all-navy... * https://www.airforce-technology.com/news/newsusaf-f-22-raptor-grounding-due-to-suspected-toxins-says-report/ https://www.airforce-technology.com/news/newsusaf-f-22-rapto... * https://www.forbes.com/sites/edwardsegal/2023/04/29/armys-decision-to-ground-apache-helicopters-provides-key-crisis-management-lessons/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/edwardsegal/2023/04/29/armys-de...

warner25 3y ago

Yes, there are big differences between wartime and peacetime operational tempo and maintenance capacity. I flew and managed maintenance for Black Hawks, and while deployed to Afghanistan or Iraq we flew multiples of the hours that we'd fly at home. While deployed, we ran 24-7 maintenance. We had contract maintenance support to probably triple our organic capacity. We had first priority for getting parts, and we had freedom to stockpile parts or do "controlled exchange" (i.e. cannibalize other aircraft for parts) which we couldn't do at home. One outcome is that we effectively wore out the fleet a decade or two faster than planned.