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Navigation radar, radio equipment upgrades save AF time, money

  • Published
  • By Michelle Eviston
  • Air Force Materiel Command Public Affairs
WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio --  What started out as a "high wire" idea has captured the attention of the aviation community.

The Federal Aviation Administration recently contacted Air Force Materiel Command and invited AFMC officials to share results from the command's Air Traffic Control and Landing Systems, or ATCALS, upgrade.

ATCALS includes all navigation radar and radio equipment in support of air traffic control. It's the brainchild of Charles Bryson, who works in AFMC's Air, Space and Information Operations directorate. Mr. Bryson wanted to transform the way AFMC maintained ATCALS. His idea was the first of its kind, and Mr. Bryson said he knew it would take the finesse and forethought of a tight-rope walker to succeed.

His plan was to acquire and implement new ATCALS navigation equipment that would support remote maintenance. Mr. Bryson reasoned that if you could fix outages from anywhere, it would free up maintenance crews, improve efficiency and save money.

The ATCALS transformation began in 2003 and all phases of transformation were in place by 2006.

This overhaul made AFMC the first in the world to perform remote maintenance and remote flight inspections. As a result, in addition to the FAA invitation, another member of Air, Space and Information Operations will travel to the International Flight Inspection Symposium to present findings June 27.

The maintenance system works like this: Previously, each AFMC base had its own maintenance team. Now, a single five-person crew is in charge of all repairs. Based at Eglin AFB, Fla., the team monitors the navigation equipment at the air traffic control towers at Eglin as well as Edwards AFB, Calif., Hill AFB, Utah, Robins AFB, Ga., Tinker AFB, Okla., and Wright-Patterson AFB. If there is an outage at any base, the Eglin crew can pull up all the information and fix it electronically, without ever having to leave the building.

AFMC also applied remote maintenance technology to flight inspections. The FAA requires these inspections every six to nine months. In the past, this meant sending a crew to the equipment site to facilitate the test. Now, AFMC uses the remote adjustment capabilities and a dialup radio at each AFMC location to put the Eglin crew in contact with the FAA flight inspection crew.

According to Mr. Bryson, many people outside the Air Force had their doubts. But now things are starting to change.

"Of course people are always skeptical when you first start out," he said. "We've been doing it long enough that the data is proving our theory. Now people are starting to wake up and say 'Ok, this works.'"

And with five years of data to back it up, the success of the program is undeniable.

The new ATCALS equipment works 99.77 percent of the time, which is 2 percent more effective than it was under the Air Force legacy system.

If there is an outage, and it requires no additional parts, it takes the Eglin maintenance team an average of 26.8 minutes to fix. It took an average of four hours to fix such a problem under the Air Force legacy system.

If an outage does require replacement parts, the average repair time is 26.2 hours for the Eglin crew, compared to an average repair time of 4.5 days under the Air Force legacy system.

To date the program has saved AFMC $4.3 million annually. The reduction in personnel needed to perform maintenance has been the biggest money saver. But AFMC has also saved money on parts.

"In the past, when a part failed, we had to pay through the Air Force depot," Mr. Bryson explained. "Now, we've gone to a 15 year warranty, which we paid the vendor upfront."

If any of the parts break within those 15 years, the vendor ships new ones to AFMC for free.

Mr. Bryson pointed out that it's not just the technology that has contributed to its success - it's the change in mentality, too.

"You need to change," he said. "Buying equipment that rarely fails is a good thing. But unless you change your processes and procedures, you may create more problems than you solve."