Environmental Effects on Reliability and Maintainability of Air Force Avionics Equipment
Abstract
Air Force Logistics Command maintenance cost and reliability data were analyzed for four categories of airplanes: cargo, fighter, trainer, and bomber. The data base included two years of operations for 33 models, and approximately 8,500 individual airplanes. Maintenance cost percentages were determined for ten major subsystems. Maintenance costs for avionics subsystems were found to be approximately 40% of all maintenance costs, which is greater than the combined total of the five next most expensive subsystems, i.e., power plant, air frame, landing gear, flight control, and fuel system. The cost to maintain just the environmentally induced avionics failures is comparable to the cost of maintaining any other airplane subsystem. Based on the Data evaluated, the elimination of environmentally coded avionic failures on the ten major systems could increase their overall field reliability by a factor of 1.2 to 2. 5. Recommendations were made to develop realistic environmental test criteria which would uncover such failure modes (and lead to correct design) before equipments become operational.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Aug 01, 1974
- Accession Number
- ADB012421
Entities
People
- Alan H. Burkhard
- David K. Prather
- David L. Earls
Organizations
- Flight Dynamics Laboratory