Is MX inadvertently hurting A/C modernization efforts?

[Napoleon_Tanerite]

Just an opinion question here. Do you think MX is inadvertently torpedoing efforts to modernize and upgrade older aircraft by reporting a higher than actual mission capable rate?

Not to take anything away from MX, those guys are miracle workers; however, from a bystander's perspective, it seems like it is a lot harder to pitch "we need new engines" when on paper your aircraft is reporting an 80-100% mission capable rate. The obvious retort to the request for new engines then becomes "well, if your airplane is functioning so well, why do we need to spend the money on new engines?"

I have a strictly ops oriented point of view, with no real grounds in MX or acquisitions, so I might be way off here. Would reporting how broke the entire fleet is be more beneficial than simply reporting how capable we are at generating the required tails, regardless of how many broken ones sit on the ramp?

[uhhello]

The "truth" comes and goes in cycles in the maint world. I have been in since 98 and have been a fighter crew chief on the line my whole career. MC rates are such a joke and reflect very little on the true status of each jet. You guys have to get your sorties somehow and if the jet is broke, it WILL be "fixed" enough to get a sortie out of it. What kind of sortie you get out of the jet is a different matter. Anyone on Kadena from 04-06 should know all about PMC jets. Ever heard of Code 3 flyable? Me neither until our FMC rate was in the low teens on a nightly basis.

We (OPs and MX) shoot ourselves in the foot each and every year by making the the sortie/hours goal each year. Each year we make it, our thanks is an increase to next years rates and a decrease in manning, parts, funds, and increasingly assinine policies.

Its been a long 11 years and I thank buddha every day now that I'm crossing over to the ops side. At least it will be a different kind of suck.

[Sierra Hotel]

The other thing to remember is that on certain airframes that when the jet brakes, TACC (the anti Christ center) re-cuts the mission with a new mission number. This way when the jet takes off, it is 100% mission capable for that flight. The old mission number just disappears.

[Hacker]

We (OPs and MX) shoot ourselves in the foot each and every year by making the the sortie/hours goal each year. Each year we make it, our thanks is an increase to next years rates and a decrease in manning, parts, funds, and increasingly assinine policies.

This. Sorta.

[pawnman]

I know that in B-1 world, ops and MX are constantly at odds...basically, when a jet is FMC, the easiest way to keep it FMC is not to fly it. For a while now we've had a weird system where 6 jets are tasked for a given week, and even "FMC" jets are not on the schedule as spares. But, I think the message is getting through...our flying hours at home station have been cut dramatically "to improve fleet health". Hopefully MX takes the opportunity to actually fix the jets.

Caveat: Not bagging at all on the dudes turning wrenches on the line...they work their asses off to get sorties launched, even training sorties, and I appreciate every minute they put into it. Their leadership, however...let's just say I've played cancellation chicken more than once where they've told us we'll have a green jet in several hours, hoping we'll run out of crew rest before they run out of excuses.

[uhhello]

I know that in B-1 world, ops and MX are constantly at odds...basically, when a jet is FMC, the easiest way to keep it FMC is not to fly it. For a while now we've had a weird system where 6 jets are tasked for a given week, and even "FMC" jets are not on the schedule as spares. But, I think the message is getting through...our flying hours at home station have been cut dramatically "to improve fleet health". Hopefully MX takes the opportunity to actually fix the jets.

Caveat: Not bagging at all on the dudes turning wrenches on the line...they work their asses off to get sorties launched, even training sorties, and I appreciate every minute they put into it. Their leadership, however...let's just say I've played cancellation chicken more than once where they've told us we'll have a green jet in several hours, hoping we'll run out of crew rest before they run out of excuses.

Need a bandwagon emoticon :)

The switch back to MXG control over maint was supposed to allow us to fix the jets right all while giving OPS what they need to train/fight. Looks good on paper but the reality of it is the worker bees get f'ed over even harder and OPS are flying with ineffective jets which only doubles the load on maint in the long run. We need to switch back over to OPS control.

At least under OPS control you only had to listen to one guy preaching the canned line that "safety comes first" while at the same time reducing turn times and manning. Now they have to listen to OPS & MX preaching it.

Edited November 1, 2009 by uhhello

[busdriver]

The problem as this Capt see's it is that MX effectiveness is driven by metrics that describe "health of the fleet." In other words how ready to go to war are we right now. That same metric describes rated effectiveness. The problem is those are competing interests, flyers need to fly as often as possible to be as ready as possible, which means we break aircraft, which means we need more maintainers for a reduced fleet. Personnel costs are what drove the recent "RIF," think that affected the MX force?

Air-power is a force multiplier, but much like SOF it isn't cheap and there are no short cuts. Dear Boss......??

[Hacker]

Air-power is a force multiplier, but much like SOF it isn't cheap and there are no short cuts. Dear Boss......??

Damn, some great quotes in this short thread all ready.

A month or two ago I heard of a new-in-2009 "Dear Boss" letter. Anyone else seen such a beast? Given the current circumstances both inside and outside the USAF, I'm interested to see what this one says.

Perhaps it will get all the same attention and action that the previous two (or is it three?) USAF Dear Boss letters did. I think there's a BIG lesson to be learned out of the fact that the first Dear Boss letter's author wasn't able to fix the issues he brought up in letter #1 even as a MAJCOM CC. The bigger lesson is probably that you could change a couple of the terms in Keys' letter and it would apply just as much today as it did in the 1980s.

[schokie]

I've read Gen Keys' letter, but I wasn't aware there was another one out there, not counting this alleged new one. Anyone have a copy or link?

[hindsight2020]

Ditto for the BUFF. MX and Ops are not playing for the same team. The meetings looks like Treaty negotiations, they even sit juxtaposed to each other at the table, that's psychology 101 stuff.

Here MX is wicked undermanned, plus high turnover and lax policies on letting people leave in the past decade (in fairness, prompted by the very underfunding of the airframe in the perennial thought that the plane "is going away") has created a local go/no-go rates that are pathetic and completely unreliable for Ops to do the lord's work with. It's frustrating and ops people are rotting away going dead on chit. it sucks.

oh well, back to minding the shop, gotta make sure that front row of cans and cardboard cutouts look spotless, so I can collect my paycheck....

[Hacker]

I've read Gen Keys' letter, but I wasn't aware there was another one out there, not counting this alleged new one. Anyone have a copy or link?

There was definitely a 2nd one written during the Fogleman era, '97ish. When I read the AF times article on it, that was the first time I'd even heard of the Keys letter.

I had a vague recollection in my mind that there was a 3rd letter written post 9/11, but maybe not.

[Napoleon_Tanerite]

Caveat: Not bagging at all on the dudes turning wrenches on the line...they work their asses off to get sorties launched, even training sorties, and I appreciate every minute they put into it. Their leadership, however...let's just say I've played cancellation chicken more than once where they've told us we'll have a green jet in several hours, hoping we'll run out of crew rest before they run out of excuses.

HAH! CX chicken! I've played that game plenty of times-- unfortunately it's like a game of gay chicken! Nobody wins. Last time I played that stupid game it was SUPPOSED to be a 0800-1500 sortie on a friday. Well, a good ole game of CX chicken ensues, and it ended up being a 2000-0000 sortie... on a friday night. Much like gay chicken, both MX lost and so did ops. The MX guys were out there turning wrenches and performing whatever black magic and voodoo it took to fix the jet all day, and then had to catch the jet when we came home, and the ops guys had to fly a sortie late on a friday night. If either side had relented we all could have had a nice short day. Of course the DO and pro super who were having it out hauled ass home as soon as the jet was green enough to fly. (AKA, still yellow, but with enough of a tinge of green to squeeze a sortie out of it)

[Bullet]

The issue is the leadership for each (Mx, Ops, and the Wing King themselves) are measured by different grade sheets. If you're in charge and out for looking good on paper (which 90% + of today's leaders are), then you test to your grade sheet.

Thus, Mx/CC focuses on sortie generation rates, OPs on RAP requirements, and the Wg/CC on meeting UTE rates / C-1 status for the squadrons. Naturally, this creates a system where the three key areas are at odds with one another, and resentment all around. Of course, how successful a Wing is should be measured on the only true grade sheet: mission accomplishment; bombs on target. Tough to measure that back home, though.

Edited November 1, 2009 by Bullet

[Hacker]

Apologies for the continued thread derail, but this is the 1997 AF Times article where the 2nd "Dear Boss" letter appears:

Bird, Julie. Punching Out: In a Letter to His "Boss", A Pilot Explains Why He's Leaving the Air Force. Air Force Times pp 12-14, March 17, 1997.

[JarheadBoom]

Caveat: Not bagging at all on the dudes turning wrenches on the line...they work their asses off to get sorties launched, even training sorties, and I appreciate every minute they put into it. Their leadership, however...let's just say I've played cancellation chicken more than once where they've told us we'll have a green jet in several hours, hoping we'll run out of crew rest before they run out of excuses.

That is WRI in a nutshell - MX "leadership" pushing a rolling-ETIC along in the hopes that we will finally throw in the towel (for whatever reason - crew duty day, loss of activity, etc.) and say ENOUGH!... so it'll be an "OPS cancel" and not a "MX cancel".

From what I've heard from our DO, the weekly WG meetings have, several times, basically turned into a msn number-by-msn number blame game, with Ops and Mx literally arguing over who will "take the blame".

[mudhen69]

My favorite tactic is when MX begs for mercy early in the week and we tailor our schedule so they can show no MND's. Then when people dont see themselves on the schedule to fly they mire themsevles in the queep that has piled up on thier desk. MX will miracle some jets then ask ops if they have anyone to fly them. When ops says "NO" it becomes an OPS canx.

An original schedule of 10 lines gets tailored down to 6 to prevent 4 MND's, can turn into 6 scheduled lines with 2 ops canx if MX produces extra jets. Oldest trick in the book, the ol bait and switch. MX goes from 2 maybe 4 MND's to 100% production with 2 ops cancels and in the mean time never produced the orignal amount they aggreed to produce.

[BQZip01]

My favorite tactic is when MX begs for mercy early in the week and we tailor our schedule so they can show no MND's. Then when people dont see themselves on the schedule to fly they mire themsevles in the queep that has piled up on thier desk. MX will miracle some jets then ask ops if they have anyone to fly them. When ops says "NO" it becomes an OPS canx.

An original schedule of 10 lines gets tailored down to 6 to prevent 4 MND's, can turn into 6 scheduled lines with 2 ops canx if MX produces extra jets. Oldest trick in the book, the ol bait and switch. MX goes from 2 maybe 4 MND's to 100% production with 2 ops cancels and in the mean time never produced the orignal amount they aggreed to produce.

This would be called "cooking the books" but it results from a maintenance group that views every opportunity of conflict with the ops group as an "Us versus Them" battle that must be won so they don't look bad. Its the bean counters that only care about the number of jets that take off.

The solution is to hold both the Ops AND Mx responsible if a sortie doesn't get off the ground. We fail as a WING, not as a group. While someone may indeed be to blame, it doesn't change the fact that a jet didn't get off the ground and training/combat didn't get done. We can't bicker amongst ourselves; we have to generate sorties!

A few things need to be accepted:

1. Things break

2. People get sick

Now we should do everything we can to mitigate those, but accept that they happen and do what you can to prevent/minimize them.

[zrooster99]

While someone may indeed be to blame, it doesn't change the fact that a jet didn't get off the ground and training/combat didn't get done. We can't bicker amongst ourselves; we have to generate sorties!

A few things need to be accepted:

1. Things break

2. People get sick

Shack. The discussion of who/what drove the late TO/CANX, assuming it's not due to gross buffoonery (that needs to be fixed) on anyone's part, is irrelevant.

[BQZip01]

Shack. The discussion of who/what drove the late TO/CANX, assuming it's not due to gross buffoonery (that needs to be fixed) on anyone's part, is irrelevant.

Blamestorm (verb): "To brainstorm about ways to blame others or publicly assign blame"

[BQZip01]

CONFESSSSSSSSS!