Ok...so 99.9% of this article is about the KC-135...but it talks about the next phase of the "reviews"
January 27, 2004
Panel to review KC-135 fleet’s future
By Gordon Trowbridge
Times staff writer
The KC-135 Stratotanker will be the next patient for an Air Force panel tasked with determining the future of the service’s aging aircraft fleets.
Col. Fran Crowley, chief of the Air Force Fleet Viability Board at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, said he hopes to forward recommendations for the C-5A Galaxy — the board’s first review subject — by March. The KC-135E and R models will come next, followed by <b>A-10A Thunderbolt</b>, the F-16 Falcon blocks 10 and 15, and the B-52H Stratofortress.
Crowley’s Jan. 26 interview with Air Force Times was the first public discussion of the fleets to follow the C-5A.
The board’s job is to recommend to Air Force Secretary James Roche whether the aging fleets it will review should continue in the Air Force inventory.
Crowley said his board of technical experts is looking not only at maintenance records and costs, but how well the aircraft perform in combat conditions and whether they are capable of handling future upgrades in engines, avionics and other systems.
“Nearly all of this is a brand new process,” said Crowley, who began assembling his staff in August 2003.
Previous efforts have focused on the present capabilities of aircraft, or on specific areas such as the cost of continued ownership or remaining structural life.
But Crowley’s panel must consider all those and other factors to deliver a recommendation on the future of the C-5A and other planes to follow.
http://airforcetimes.com/story.php?f=0- ... 590719.php
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