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Naval Aviation Enterprise “One Vision, One Team”

Future Readiness Team

Today’s leaders, maintainers and operators of Naval Aviation systems often find themselves operating in environments predetermined by yesterday’s decisions but impacted by today’s fiscal realities. These systems range from the newest aircraft in the Naval Aviation fleet, like the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter that is stealthy, supersonic, well-armed and multi-missioned, to advanced helicopters that can do everything from anti-submarine warfare to medical evacuations, to the oldest aircraft in the fleet that are still in service, such as the legacy F/A-18 Hornet. With these legacy aircraft making up approximately one third of the total Navy and Marine Corps aircraft inventory through Fiscal Year 2020, the enormous challenge facing Naval Aviation is keeping these legacy aircraft operational well past their expected service life while also fielding the next generation aircraft. With continued delays in the planned delivery quantities of the new aircraft due to developmental issues, cost overruns and budgetary limitations, replacements for the legacy aircraft are being postponed further and further into the future. This challenges the fleet’s ability to acquire additional capabilities, maintain legacy assets, and ultimately deliver the required readiness and warfighting capabilities needed to ensure aviators, aircrew and maintainers have what they need to focus on warfighting first, be ready to operate forward, and continue to be successful when they fly in harm’s way.

In response to these challenges, Naval Aviation senior leadership established the Future Readiness Team in September 2009. The mission of this team is to foster cross-enterprise collaboration to identify issues impacting the future readiness of Naval Aviation airframes and champion solutions to those issues that reduce total ownership cost and/or improve the overall sustainability of multiple aviation platforms. An example of such a solution is the Engine Reliability Fix (ERF) VI. ERF VI is an initiative that was championed by the Future Readiness Team that is improving the lifespan of engines for several aviation platforms through the use of different repair techniques. Results of this initiative are improved reliability, availability and performance of these engines; a decrease in the number of new engines needed; and decreased life cycle costs due to the reduction of intermediate and depot level repairs. Since its inception, the Future Readiness Team has successfully championed the funding of over 31 initiatives impacting future readiness and/or reducing total ownership cost and assisting in the transition of Science and Technology projects that improve readiness and/or decrease ownership cost to programs of record.

The Future Readiness Team—focused on achieving effective and efficient levels of required future readiness!


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