{"id":40187,"date":"2022-06-02T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-06-02T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/airforcetimes\/uncategorized\/2022\/06\/02\/heres-how-tinker-air-force-base-cut-heavy-maintenance-time-for-f-35-engines-in-half\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T22:43:32","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T22:43:32","slug":"heres-how-tinker-air-force-base-cut-heavy-maintenance-time-for-f-35-engines-in-half","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/airforcetimes\/news\/your-air-force\/2022\/06\/02\/heres-how-tinker-air-force-base-cut-heavy-maintenance-time-for-f-35-engines-in-half\/","title":{"rendered":"Here\u2019s how Tinker Air Force Base cut heavy maintenance time for F-35 engines in half"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 A hiring wave, process overhauls, and new tools and equipment have helped a U.S. Air Force base cut by more than half the time it takes to repair and overhaul F-35 engines<\/a>, from an average 244 days to 106.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the commander of the base\u2019s Oklahoma City Air Logistics Complex hopes that in two years, if it gets the necessary resources, Tinker Air Force Base will be able to repair anywhere from 105 to 120 F135 power modules<\/a> per year. That would be more than double the 51 it handled in 2021, Maj. Gen. Jeffrey King said in a May 26 interview. The air logistics complex is a massive facility at Tinker \u2014 the largest of three depots in Air Force Materiel Command \u2014 that maintains a variety of aircraft and engines for the Air Force, including the F135.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A scarcity of working and available F135 engines has plagued the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program and increasingly dragged down the jet\u2019s mission-capable rate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Government Accountability Office told Congress in April that, across the military\u2019s fleet, F-35s were unable to fly due to a lack of spare parts for about 17% of the time in fiscal 2020 and fiscal 2021. <\/b>A lack of functional power modules \u2014 the engine\u2019s core, which contains key controls and components that generate the thrust to propel the aircraft \u2014 was the top reason those F-35s weren\u2019t mission capable, the watchdog agency said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Improving the capacity of depots that perform the heaviest maintenance on F135 engines is one of the key ways the military is trying to tackle that worsening shortage. By far, Tinker AFB\u2019s Heavy Maintenance Center handles the most F135 maintenance work. The military is also trying to reduce the amount of necessary work on engines, in part by extending how long they can stay on a jet before they need to receive maintenance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe reduction of flow days from 244 down to \u2026 106 [between the beginning of 2021 and today] was not by accident, and it was not by just lobbing off fat,\u201d King told Defense News. \u201cIt was a deliberate, meticulous application of [process improvements]. We changed up how we inspected parts when they were removed, we changed how we trained our personnel. We redesigned shop floors and redesigned shop processes to eke every day out of the production process to go faster.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The F-35 Joint Program Office in fall 2020 put in place a plan to fix the engine\u2019s sustainment troubles, focusing on improving depot capacity and keeping engines on aircraft longer.<\/p>\n\n\n\t