"Marine Corps Plans To Keep Harriers Flying Until At Least 2021"

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Marine Corps Plans To Keep Harriers Flying Until At Least 2021
June 20, 2007
The Marine Corps is taking several steps, including an airframe
fatigue effort and work to maintain the supplier base, to ensure its
fleet of Boeing [BA] AV-8B Harriers will continue to fly well into the
next decade and beyond, according to a Marine Corps official.
The service has to maintain its fleet of Harriers for operational use
until the first Lockheed Martin [LMT] F-35B short take off and
vertical landing (STOVL) variant of the Joint Strike Fighters comes on
line. The first Harrier is set to leave the fleet in 2012, with the
final aircraft retiring in 2021, Col. Mitch Bauman, AV-8B program
manager, told Defense Daily in a recent interview.
The Marine Corps has a fatigue life effort currently underway looking
specifically at the Harrier airframe, Bauman said. The Harrier was
built with 6,000 hours of lifetime in it, he added.
Working with the program's structural engineers, the Marine Corps has
been able to track flight hours and convert them into a metric called
Fatigue Life Expended (FLE), Bauman said.
The operational flight program (OFP) inside the aircraft will record
that information, he added.
"We believe we can get the airplane out to 2025 plus, using the FLE
method and using inspections to take care of the airframe," Bauman
said.
Back in the 1990s, the Marine Corps realized the Harrier was going to
be flying a lot longer than originally imagined. So they put together
an aircraft life extension program that extended the service life of
the wing, the vertical tail and some subsystems components out to
9,500 hours, Bauman said.
A Rolls-Royce engine is the heart of the Harrier. The STOVL
peculiarities of the airplane and the components Rolls-Royce builds
are very complex, Bauman said. The Marine Corps has been working with
Rolls-Royce to get those components into a component improvement
program (CIP).
"We have what we call a propulsion systems management plan that looks
at the total aircraft engine and looks at life of the engine, all the
individual components, the hot section, the cold section and dictates
through analysis what needs to be improved or replaced," Bauman
explained.
The Marine Corps also needed to get the supply chains for the airframe
and the engine under control, he added. The service took a major step
in that direction earlier this month when the Pentagon signed a $258
million performance-based logistics (PBL) contract with Boeing.
The Harrier Integrated Supply Support (HISS) program also covers the
Italian and Spanish Harriers, the company reported.
The five-year firm fixed price contract will look at 48 aircraft
systems, 1,026 repairables and 70,500 consumables, Bauman said.
Under terms of the contract, which includes the ability to forecast
and project Harrier flight hours, Boeing will work with its sub
vendors to maintain the AV-8B's supply chain, he added.
"Some decisions will have to be made, [for example] whether you buy
lifetime buys, because sometimes it is not affordable for some of
these companies to keep their [production] lines open," Bauman said.
The United States has 150 Harriers in its fleet; the Italians 17, the
Spanish 17, and the British 83. "Rolls-Royce, just like Boeing, is
going to have to step up to the plate, too, working with Naval
Inventory Control Point (NAVICP) in getting the supply chain under
control for the engine components," Bauman said. "They are working
toward these long-term requirements contracts so they can forecast out
and move toward a component PBL in the future."
The AV-8B is seeing extensive use in Iraq, particularly in Al Asad,
Bauman said. The Marines have 10 aircraft assigned to the area and
they are averaging more than 30 flight hours a month. In 2006 and 2007
during Operation Iraqi Freedom, Harriers flew 18,000 combat hours,
6,000 sorties, and the service never lost a single plane, he added.
"They have been flying close air support with the LITENING pod. That
has brought the Harrier back into the real-world of precision guided
munitions," Bauman said. "They have been doing a wonderful job of
dropping JDAMs (Joint Direct Attack Munition), the 500-pounders and
1,000-pounders. And we just got clearance to drop the GBU-51, which is
the low- collateral damage bomb."
The last squadron that just came back also reported that they
identified approximately 50 improvised explosive devices (IED) in
theater with Northrop Grumman's [NOC] LITENING pod, Bauman noted.
One of the things that the Marine Corps has put together to help
offset some of the operational wear and tear of its Harriers is a
program called "Preset-Reset," Bauman said. Before the airplane goes
to Iraq, the Marine Corps uses contractor maintenance to put in all
the technical directives and engineering change proposals (ECP) that
the aircraft needs to make it a full mission systems to go to Iraq, he
added.
The AV-8B goes through a similar process when it returns from
operations, Bauman said.
"We took money [Headquarters] Marine Corps sent down and pushed it
down to fleet support teams and they have come up with these
maintenance requirements decks, cards, that have developed. It's one
more way of priming the pump to get these airplanes out there in great
condition," he said.