Uses (and abuses) of standard and non-parametric statistical methods in the analysis of aging aircraft R&M data

Military aircraft are aging; availability is declining; support costs are rising. Understanding these issues requires obtaining and analyzing the appropriate data. However, there are difficulties encountered when U.S. Air Force R&M data is used in standard statistical analysis Many remedial techniques are not satisfactory, even if they are statistically acceptable, because they are usually difficult to explain to, and poorly understood by, the target audience. Nonparametric methods, including correlation and goodness of fit tests, have been used successfully in some cases as alternatives to the standard approaches. Some interesting relationships have been discovered as a result.