A support equipment improvement opportunity

The United States Air Force (USAF) has been increasingly concerned with two major issues since the end of the cold war. First, how to meet the security requirements of a relatively unstable political world. Second, how to reduce the costs associated with acquiring and operating its equipment in the face of increasingly tighter budgets. These issues resulted in a requirement to improve the deployability and affordability of operational units. In this paper, we describe some problems related to aerospace ground equipment (AGE) facing the USAF today and in the future. We also describe why it is opportune for the USAF and Department of Defense (DoD) to address these problems now while there is a window of opportunity. We then briefly review the approach we are taking to research technologies and concepts to improve the affordability and deployability of ACE so operational units can do more with less.