In a prelude to the release of its national strategy document later this year, the Defense Department's Joint Council on Aging Aircraft (JCAA) has identified its top 12 concerns, ranging from technical issues such as corrosion to management issues such as changing the way maintainers are trained to deal with older aircraft.

"It's not just technology," JCAA Chairman Bob Ernst of Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) told The DAILY. "If we don't fix our training and other logistics support elements as well, we're not going to be able to really get our hands around the aging issue."

Training for aircraft maintainers is one of the top 12 issues. Most aircraft maintenance courses are developed when an aircraft is new, according to Ernst, which can lead to problems as the aircraft ages.

"We need to make a paradigm shift in what we develop for maintenance training, because the way you would train your maintainers for a new aircraft and an old aircraft are slightly different," he said.

For example, in addition to making sure maintainers are versed on basic issues such as wire identification, "the question is, are we training and are we certifying the people for the shift that you're going to have more [wiring] splicing issues when you have older aircraft," Ernst said. "So it's just a change in culture and a change in emphasis."

The JCAA's purpose is to leverage efforts across the services and help field products to improve the availability and affordability of aging aircraft. The group plans to release a comprehensive report detailing its national strategy, based around the 12 points, by the end of the year (DAILY, Sept. 2).

Preventing Corrosion

Another of the Top 12 concerns is speeding the development of the next generation of corrosion-preventative compounds (CFCs). Corrosion continues to be the number one source of maintenance man-hours in the Navy, according to Ernst, and is a major problem for the other services as well. Current CFCs need to be reapplied too frequently, Ernst said.

"We need to put research to get that span longer, because ... as the aircraft gets into a fielded environment, where they're flying different mission profiles ... the reapplication of those corrosion-preventative compounds sometimes falls by the wayside," he said.

Despite the influx of new aircraft made of corrosion-resistant composites, "you're always going to have metals, you're always going to have certain alloys," and thus corrosion will remain a concern, according to Ernst.