Air Force ready, but general has concerns for future

Published April 3, 2008
By Staff Sgt. Monique Randolph
Secretary of the Air Force Public Affairs

WASHINGTON -- The Air Force vice chief of staff and his counterparts from the other services, testified on readiness before the Senate Armed Services Committee Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support April 1.

Gen. Duncan J. McNabb addressed Senate questions about the wear and tear on aircraft caused by ongoing operations. General McNabb explained that it is not necessarily the flying hours that cause wear and tear on deployed aircraft. Deployment cycles and conditions are also major contributors.

"For a C-17 (Globemaster III) that is deployed and is being used to transport (cargo) that would have typically (been transported) by ground, the wear and tear is three times what it would be if it was coming from the states, going into theater and coming back out," he said.

The way deployed aircraft are used can age them by three or four years in a single deployment, he said. Air Force officials have taken risks in recapitalization to ensure the near-term readiness mission was completed.

"We're now at the point where if you look at our aging fleet, we have 688 airplanes that are restricted and 95 that we had to take off the flying schedule because they're broken," General McNabb said. "Those are the things that absolutely concern us."

The general reinforced the need to recapitalize the Air Force's aging tanker fleet in order to keep up with current and future demands on air power.

"There are increasing demands on air, and we don't see that changing," General McNabb told the two senators in attendance. "The number of (hours we fly) has stayed about the same since 1992; however, we are 31 percent smaller in the number of aircraft we have and we're 41 percent older. This means we are going to age out of equipment more rapidly, and the recapitalization of our assets becomes even more important to us.

"We will continue to do everything we can to continue to support this (war on terrorism), but it is at the expense of tomorrow if we don't recapitalize, and that is probably our biggest concern," General McNabb said.

He praised the investment government officials have made in ensuring the Air Force has "world-class" depot maintenance facilities which he said accomplished a 98 percent on-time delivery rate in 2007. He asked for the committee's continued support to help recapitalize and modernize aging equipment to improve readiness for future generations.