DoD Estimates the Annual Impact of Corrosion on Availability of Army Aviation Weapon Systems
By Eric Herzberg
LMI Government Consulting was asked by the Corrosion Prevention and Control Integrated Product Team (CPC IPT) in May 2010 to measure the corrosion impact on the availability of all Department of Defense (DoD) aviation weapon systems. This report estimates corrosion-related aircraft availability impacts for Army aviation systems.
The new report, titled The Annual Cost of Corrosion for Air Force Aircraft and Missile Equipment, is available to the public on the CorrDefense Web site.
Using fiscal year (FY) 2008 and FY 2009 as a measurement baseline, we estimat-ed the annual corrosion availability impact for Army aviation systems to be 1.72 million non-available hours for all Army aviation assets. This number represents approximately 16 percent of the total non-availability of 10.74 million hours reported by the Army for its aviation weapon systems.1 This percentage equates to an average of 17 days of corrosion-related non-availability per year based on the average available aircraft the Army reported in FY 2009.
When training aircraft and aviation weapon systems that are part of a Reset or Recap/Rebuild program are removed, the total corrosion-related non-available hours are 1.57 million. This number represents 16 percent of the total non-availability of 9.76 million hours reported by the Army for these aircraft.
The total corrosion-related non-available hours is measured in a way consistent with how the Army reports its not-mission-capable (NMC) time.
Our review of Army aviation assets is part of a multiple-year plan to measure the impact of corrosion on cost and availability. This is the first of the availability studies for Army aviation assets. Table 1 lists past and future cost studies, and Table 2 lists availability studies.2
Table 1 - DoD Cost of Corrosion Studies |
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aStudy period is one calendar year. |
Table 2 - DoD Availability Studies on the Effect of Corrosion |
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aStudy period is one calendar year. |
Our estimated corrosion impact applies to 56 types of Army aviation weapon systems, including 10 different models of engines. The scope of the study included an average inventory of 4,108 aircraft.
We stratified the corrosion, non-availability impact on Army aviation weapon systems by type, model, and series (TMS); total non-available hours; and non-available hours per item. We then ranked the top 10 systems for total corrosion non-available hours and average corrosion non-available hours. The order in which aircraft are listed in Table 3 suggests a priority for further examination from a corrosion-related, non-available hours standpoint.
In FY 2009, the UH-1H utility helicopter had the highest average corrosion-related non-available hours per aircraft and the sixth highest total corrosion-related non-available hours for Army aviation, making it the greatest contributor of corrosion-related non-available hours from a combined-ranking standpoint.
Table 3 - Highest Combined Rankings of Average Corrosion Non-Available Hours
Per Aircraft and Total Corrosion Non-Available Hours (FY 2009) |
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Three of the top six aircraft from a combined-ranking standpoint in Table 3 are from the OH-58 family.
Nearly three-fourths of the corrosion-related NMC hours are attributable to preventive maintenance. In Table 4, we show a breakdown of the corrosion-related non-available hours attributable to preventive maintenance. Inspection is by far the biggest contributor to total corrosion-related non-available hours attributable to preventive maintenance.
Table 4 - Total Preventive, Corrosion-Related Non-Available Hours by Activity, FY 2009 |
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1LMI based the Army’s non-availability figures on FY 2009, since that was the most recent year for which study data was available.
2The Department of Defense funded these studies.
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