Navy saves Air Force $1 million

  • Published
  • By Sheila Rupp
  • Nucleus journalist
KIRTLAND AIR FORCE BASE, N.M. --  Maintenance of any equipment is costly but is a necessity. This is especially true for the maintenance and upkeep of weapons trainers, but finding the money for proper maintenance isn't always easy to find. The 708th Nuclear Systems Squadron here found an innovative way to save money and time by using parts from retired Navy trainers.

When a weapon is designed for Air Force inventory, a trainer is designed in accordance with Air Force requirements in the same shape as the parent weapon for training purposes, said Al Sanchez, director for the logistics operations flight.

The Department of Energy designs the trainers and the Air Force procures them and provides training and maintenance during the life of the parent weapon.

The trainers are approximately 25 years old and have experienced a lot of wear and tear, most of which was cosmetic and did not affect training. By accepting cosmetic defects for training use only, the squadron also saved a lot of money because the transportation cost to have the trainers repaired is expensive, he said.

Eventually, many of the trainers became unserviceable and were removed from training use, but money to refurbish the trainers was not in the budget, Mr. Sanchez said. The 708th NSS had to come up with a support plan for the aging trainers. Initially, estimates to refurbish and buy new parts for the seven trainers was $875,000.

At the biannual Project Officer's Group conference in May 2005, members of the 708th NSS presented the problem they were having with the trainers. A representative from the Navy explained that they had excess trainers and offered them to the 708th NSS for parts. The 708th NSS sent Greg Warth, equipment specialist, to evaluate the Navy's trainers and selected those that would further the Air Force program.

Mr. Sanchez said: "Everything we do is expensive and sensitive, so spare parts are hard to come by. Just to qualify a vendor to manufacture a piece is expensive. We look for those kinds of opportunities."

Lead stockpile manager Ernie Westbrook said, "Our initial rough estimate for the refurbishment of our trainers was $125,000 each, $875,000 for seven trainers. This was the estimate prior to receiving the Navy trainers and prior to completing a full cost analysis. After we received the Navy trainers and were able to reuse some of their components instead of buying new, the estimate became $112,000 for all seven. The final cost of the refurbishment of these seven trainers was $79,000."

Honeywell Federal Manufacturing and Technologies is the Department of Energy contractor that refurbished the trainers using the reclaimed parts from the Navy trainers. Using parts from the Navy trainers saved the Air Force $796,000 and moved the program ahead four years.

Of the seven refurbished trainers, five were fielded to other bases. The 708th NSS also found a way to save money in the transportation of the trainers. Estimated costs of moving the trainers back to their field locations after refurbishment on C-17s was $198,000, but by using Air National Guard C-130s, moving the trainers back to their field locations only cost $55,000, which meant an overall savings of $143,000, Mr. Westbrook said. Since the refurbishment project, the trainers are now moved using C-130s. A standard mission using the C-130s only costs $32,000 a mission, compared to the $91,000 C- 17s cost each mission.

The Air Force technical school here received one of the refurbished trainers. "Every Airman that comes into this career field gets their hands on a 'new' trainer," Mr. Sanchez.

"The Air Force desperately needed to refurbish its nuclear trainers supporting cruise missiles, but we just didn't have the money. The innovative thinking of the 708th NSS to use parts from Navy trainers helped our Airmen in the field and saved a lot of money," Nuclear Weapons Center Commander Col. Terrence Feehan said.

The entire process of developing with a support plan to getting the refurbished trainers back in their field locations took about 18 months. The innovative plan saved the Air Force nearly $1 million and the new plan for transportation will save $59,000 on each mission to transport the trainers.