Air Force readiness is at an all-time low driven by years of underfunding aircraft fleet sustainment. Weapon system sustainment challenges have resulted in lower sortie production of flying hours which is driving aircrew readiness challenges. There are options for Air Force leaders to use the OIB to address both issues and a call to action on changing the way the Air Force manages aircraft inventory.

The Problem

“Today, the US Air Force inventory is the smallest it has ever been in the 78-year-history of the service, with a 54% on average Aircraft Availability for all Air Force aircraft. Meaning just

5 of every 10 aircraft are ready to fly on a given day because of funding and parts shortfalls. If called to fight tonight, the Air Force could generate just 56 combat-coded F-22s for air superiority and 354 combat-coded F-15Es, F-16s, and F-35s for strike and interdiction. The bomber fleet is similarly diminished. It’s 140 total aircraft— B-52s, B-1s, and B-2s spread across nine squadrons— with an average aircraft age of 48 years. Only 19 are stealthy B-2s, and even those average 31 years of age. Just 52% of the bomber fleet is mission-capable on any given day.”[i] Sortie generation requires spare parts and trained maintainers to generate flying hours to improve aircrew readiness. Air Force leaders have made this effort a priority, and it looks like Congress is prepared to provide billions in funding to address the issue. Money will certainly help, but full recovery will take time to regain capability.

Leveraging the OIB

Air Force leaders need to understand and leverage the capabilities of the OIB to speed this recovery. Because the OIB operates using Working Capital Funds (WCFs), industry can quickly respond to funded requirements in a way that is unmatched by other options. The proposed solutions in this article can happen tomorrow if leaders take action. If Congress intends to significantly fund the readiness problem, the OIB can respond today while other longer-term solutions like fully qualified maintainers and spare parts on the shelf become a reality. The OIB isn’t just the three Air Logistic Complexes (ALCs), but the larger network across all the Services, including the Supply Chain activities. The OIB can help with the supply chain and with manpower to increase sortie generation.

OIB Supply Chain Support

Over the last two budget cycles, Congress and OSD have tried to infuse over $1B of appropriated funding into the Air Force to buy spare parts. The results in execution have been mixed, with the only real investments being made in the F-35 Global Spares Pool. The 448th Supply Chain Wing is ready to invest in the supply chain with contracts in place, but the full generation of those parts will take years. Several other options exist in the OIB to help now, and Congress has made it clear in the recent National Defense Authorization Act of 2026 (NDAA) that they want to leverage those options with the following sections calling out efforts to improve the right to repair and the use of additive manufacturing.

342. JOINT STRIKE FIGHTER SUSTAINMENT.
344. PROPOSED ACTIONS WITH RESPECT TO CAUSES AND EFFECTS OF DECLINING AIRCRAFT READINESS RATES.
805. ADDRESSING INSUFFICIENCIES IN TECHNICAL DATA.
1842. TRANSITION TO ADVANCED MANUFACTURING FOR CERTAIN CRITICAL READINESS ITEMS OF SUPPLY.
1843. WORKING GROUP ON THE ADVANCED MANUFACTURING WORKFORCE.
1846. IMPROVEMENTS RELATING TO ADVANCED MANUFACTURING.
ROBINS AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. – Jessica Adams, 402nd Commodities Maintenance Group robotics engineer, briefs the capabilities of the radome repair robotic system to members of the Organic Industrial Base commanders and leaders peer-to-peer meeting tour at Robin Air Force Base, Georgia, Sept.11, 2025.The learned how the robotic radome repair systems is able to scan, sand and repair aircraft radomes to C-5M, C-17, C-130 and F-15 aircraft. (U.S. Air Force photos by Joseph Mather)

The OIB has microelectronic repair capability (at Tobyhanna Army Depot) as well as advanced manufacturing capability (at Rock Island Arsenal) to support the supply chain. The roadblock to using these capabilities is the unwillingness of program office engineers to accept these parts for flight. The goal of Sections 1842, 1843, and 1846 of this legislation is to certify machines and materials so that the certification of every individual part made using those machines and materials doesn’t have to start from scratch. Additionally, when the supply chain can’t find suppliers, the OIB has limits to reverse engineer legacy parts to fill requirements. Congress wants a report (Section 805) on those limitations for technical data and the “right to repair.” DoD Industrial Base Policy is doing its part with OUSD A&S – Industrial Base Policy and recently announced investments for a reverse engineering activity for obsolescent defense-critical parts missing technical data packages. The sooner Air Force leaders respond to the NDAA and issue compelling guidance on these efforts, the sooner the OIB can start manufacturing parts where the commercial market is unwilling or unable to do so.

OIB Manpower Support

Depot Field Team (DFT) efforts have long been a feature of weapon system sustainment. These teams have been primarily focused on modification programs and severely damaged airplanes. It is time to leverage them for sortie generation. The Air Force continues to meet or exceed recruiting goals, and the maintenance training community at Sheppard AFB has adopted some exceptional approaches to speeding up the training pipeline. However, those maintainers will still require experience in their specific weapon systems to become a force multiplier. The three ALCs at Warner-Robins, Oklahoma City, and Ogden have the most experienced maintainers in the Air Force. They can contribute in a more direct way to address the current experience limitations at the unit level to immediately increase sortie generation.

The Army has recently adopted an Operational Readiness Program to use DFTs for tactical readiness and the Air Force should do the same. LTG Chris Mohan, Commander of the Army Materiel Command, offered this assessment in February 2025: “Through the Operational Readiness Program, we use data and analytics to predict equipment that is most likely to fail while units train and send organic industrial base flyaway teams to pre-position to fix that equipment and train soldiers to better maintain it. While forward mobile teams are not necessarily new, now is the time to practice and codify a data process to make smarter decisions about where we position sustainers. Through this process, we inform the future of maintenance and how we will fight and win wars.”[ii] These DFTs are funded using appropriated funds that are accepted as orders by the depots that operate using Army WCFs.

The Air Force should do the same, but they have a funding construct that is entirely different from the Army. Army tactical units still receive appropriations at the unit level to buy parts and fuel for training. These Army Operating Tempo funds are what we call flying hour dollars in the Air Force. In the mid-2000s, the Air Force created the Centralized Asset Management (CAM) approach to centralize flying hour funding and removed funding at the unit level. The bumper sticker of “You fly, we buy” is still in use 20 years later. As a young lieutenant on a flightline in 1989, I found it amazing that a production superintendent had to have a price list to determine what the unit could afford to repair as jets returned from flight with required maintenance actions. Today, parts are issued at the unit level without “cost” to them. The funding of those parts goes from CAM to the OIB. So, what would it take to make an Army model successful for the Air Force?

Air Force Model for Sortie Enabling DFTs

The answer is a model integrating the OIB, flying units, and CAM-like governance to identify and fund opportunities for DFT support that can increase sortie production.

The OIB defines its capacity to help in terms of artisans. Each ALC is aligned to specific weapons systems, and each has different capacities. Without going too deep into Air Force Working Capital Fund (AFWCF) financial processes, the core concept of a Working Capital Fund (WCF) activity is that it builds capacity to support funded orders. Should an ALC have excess capacity in execution? In theory, “no,” but in reality, the capacity was defined 18 months prior to execution, and it’s very likely that requirements have changed. As a result, there is always some capacity available. Keeping excess capacity will result in financial losses to the ALCs. What better way to sustain needed future capacity than to use it today to attack this pressing problem?

ALC capacity must be defined by weapon system or commodity, minimum and maximum team size, and minimum and maximum deployment capability as well as the fully burdened cost (Resource Cost Center rate) of the labor being provided. No direct material costs would be included in the rate as units would source parts and provide them to the DFT as needed. Travel costs would also need to be added. ALC capacity is very dynamic, workload-driven, and must be updated monthly. The OIB must support its core mission of depot maintenance first. Table 1 is a notional example of what that capacity definition might look like.

If a tactical flying unit wanted to utilize a team of four F-16 artisans for a month, this would require 160 duty hours per artisan for a total of 640 hours. With a fully burdened rate of $200/hour the estimated cost would be $128K. Travel would be another $200/day per person for 30 days, adding $24K in travel expenses. Your total rough order of magnitude (ROM) would be $152K.

The units define requirements that could help them increase sortie production. There are three areas that immediately come to mind, but there are many others as well. First, phase inspection support. Second, cannibalization aircraft rebuild. Third, daily heavy maintenance repair to regenerate aircraft for the next flying day or for deployment preparation. Most of these aren’t considered depot maintenance, but the restrictions on levels of maintenance go up (units can’t do depot maintenance) not down (depots can do lower-level repairs). Units must define their requirements with desired team size and deployment length. Table 2 is a notional look at how requirements would be stated.

Units must also define the return. For instance, if a DFT can help with a phase for 30 days, what will be the additional sorties produced? If they can help with a deployment launch, does that free up the co-located units to focus on their own sortie generation?

Using the ROM above, $152K of DFT support might enable the unit to generate 2 more front lines per day, giving you 4 additional sorties per day. For 20 days of flying, you get 80 more sorties for that month. If sorties have an average duration of 90 minutes, you have now produced 120 more flying hours.

A CAM-like governance structure would be the connector both in terms of funding and prioritizing efforts. This piece of the triad is where Air Force leaders match requirements and capacity. CAM has a governance structure that includes all key stakeholders needed in this process. They are qualified and authorized to prioritize unit requirements against OIB capacity and quantify the terms of the project order to be funded. The flying hour portion of CAM should be the primary source of funding for DFT support since the aim of this effort is to increase sortie production. This funding is controlled by HAF/A3O, and decisions are made outside of the traditional CAM governance. Figure 3 shows a proposed governance construct for the effort.

Each MAJCOM might present 10 prioritized requirements, and the council would rack and stack those based on current-day priorities, available OIB capacity, and return on investments. A final prioritized list would be generated, and a cut line for funding would then allow the order generation to begin. Once matches are made between OIB capacity and installation needs, the information is handed over to the ALC business offices to work with the unit to gather specific details to create the project order for funding.

Orders would be funded by CAM using flying hour dollars. Orders should be funded as cost-reimbursable orders.

HAF/A3O should enter this arrangement with a willingness to conduct a handful of test cases to measure results. An ideal state would be $5M (out of $8B in annual flying hour funding). That is 0.0625% of that funding. If the Air Force is serious about increasing flying hours, and that is too much to ask for, then shred this article.

A Fleet Inventory Construct Designed for Sustainment Failure

Using the OIB will help the Air Force recover readiness, but there is a much deeper systemic failure in how we fund our fleets that needs to be addressed. Experienced maintainers fully understand why deployed sortie production is so much more successful than home station sortie production. Deployed ops are focused on sortie production and supported by manpower and spare parts matched to the number of deployed aircraft. This isn’t the case for home station operations. For annual appropriations, the Air Force uses a Primary Mission Aircraft Inventory (PMAI) construct, and this results in both manpower and parts being inadequate to support readiness and sortie generation.

In the 2025 Fighter Force Structure Report, Air Force leaders asked Congress to change how aircraft are counted, advocating for a shift from counting only PMAI to counting all Combat-Coded Aircraft (CCA). This broader method would include backup and attrition reserve aircraft. They argued that PMAI underestimates true combat capacity by excluding roughly 15% of aircraft needed to generate combat power, including those held in reserve. While they didn’t highlight the sustainment resourcing mismatch, it is the more pressing issue when it comes to funding readiness. A squadron with PMAI of 12 aircraft but managing a CCA of 14 aircraft is “budgeted” for only 12 aircraft, and it is highly likely that the funding for that PMAI will be no more than 80% of requirements. PMAI drives funding for flying hours, spare parts, and manpower levels. In essence, you are asking the Air Force to generate readiness of 14 aircraft while funding only 10 aircraft…or less.

We have been using this construct for 50 years, so why are we surprised that readiness is in the cellar? The Air Force receives upwards of $180B per year in appropriations and there is talk of a $1.5 Trillion DoD annual budget for 2027. If we are going to FLY and FIGHT we have to FIX. Now is the time to remove the PMAI limit to funding and fund the full inventory. If this disconnect can’t be resolved, then it is time for the Air Force to stop sustaining anything over PMAI. Rotate the “attrition” fleet in and out of flyable storage and strip them of key parts to sustain the remainder of the fleet. Until one of these options is chosen to rectify the problem, the Air Force will likely never achieve full readiness capability.

PICATINNY ARSENAL, NJ – In a landmark event to bolster the nation’s defense capabilities, Army Contracting Command – Rock Island (ACC-RI), on behalf of Portfolio Acquisition Executive Agile Sustainment and Ammunition (PAE AS&A) and Army Materiel Command (AMC), held an Industry Day event on 19-20 March 2026 focused on highlighting opportunities across the Organic Industrial Base (OIB).
The general session drew an impressive crowd of more than 450 industry partners and government leaders. The remarkable attendance and active engagement from all participants made the event an overwhelming success, fostering invaluable collaboration that is crucial for strengthening our nation’s defense capabilities.

Conclusion

Leveraging the OIB is something Air Force leaders can do today! Congress is willing to help enable additive manufacturing efforts and fund spare parts to historic highs. The maintenance training pipeline is leading the way with inventive approaches to accelerate getting maintenance airmen to their units. However, the glide slope to significant recovery is three to five years away. The OIB labor force should be leveraged in the interim using a simple model to match capacity to requirements. Leaders need to start advocating for budgets that fund flying hours, manpower, and spare parts based on the total aircraft inventory, not PMAI. Otherwise, they may need to consider reducing the number of unit-possessed aircraft and placing aircraft in depot-possessed storage to better match resources to requirements.

About the Author

Mr. Joe Diana is a Portfolio Manager for CALIBRE Systems, Inc supporting Army Material Command and Air Force Materiel Command by leading a team of 30 personnel executing Defense Working Capital Fund training and analytics. Mr. Diana served for 26 years in the USAF as an aircraft and munitions officer, holding a variety of leadership positions including Squadron Command, Group Command, and on Headquarters Air Staff where he was directly responsible for building and defending the Air Force’s $19B annual portfolio supporting 87 different weapon systems. He can be reached at joe.diana@calibresys.com

Work Cited

[i] “USAF’s Capacity, Capability, and Readiness Crisis,” by Col. John “JV” Venable, USAF (Ret.), Air& Space Forces Magazine, May/June 2025, Vol. 108, No. 5 and 6, p.35

[ii] “A Sustained Effort: Materiel Command Initiatives Support Warfighters, Readiness”, by Lt. Gen. Chris Mohan, February 28, 2025 https://ausa.org/articles/sustained-effort-materiel-command-initiatives-support-warfighters-readiness