Impact of C-130 reliability and maintainability on future theater airlift system productivity

The US Air Force has been actively investigating the near-term acquisition of a new transport aircraft to provide improved intratheater airlift capability into the 21st century. The new transport aircraft will augment the current intratheater, or theater, airlift fleet, which is composed almost exclusively of C-130 aircraft. The new theater airlifter concept under consideration, referred to as the Enhanced Theater Airlifter, is to have reliability and maintainability attributes double that of a C-130E. The authors examine the impact of doubling the reliability and maintainability (R&M) of generic C-130 fleets on a future theater airlift system´s productivity. Doubling the reliability and maintainability of the generic C-130 was shown to give statistically significant benefits. Specifically, doubling the C-130´s R&M (1) increases its productivity by 6% in tons delivered and 4.5% in tons on time, (2) increases its responsiveness, and (3) increases fully mission capable rates 12%. Improvements to the C-130´s reliability contribute more to increasing its productivity than do improvements to its maintainability