Falcon Flex - a proven F-16 business practice

Falcon Flex was initiated in the late 1990s by the F-16 logistics operations division as the application of flexible sustainment to the F-16 weapon system. Flexible sustainment grew out of Department of Defense acquisition reform efforts encouraging new and innovative approaches to sustain fielded weapon systems in a more cost effective manner, leveraging commercial best practices and demonstrated reliability. The original Falcon Flex objective was to reduce sustainment cost without degrading weapon system performance. The achieved Falcon Flex results have been to substantially reduce sustainment cost, significantly increase reliability, and very often, as a by-product, increase capability, or improve performance. This paper explains the various Falcon Flex techniques that have been developed and describes how they have been employed to bring about reduced cost, increased reliability, and often, as a by-product, improved performance.