Military aircraft sport some of the most technologically advanced systems available, but like any other machine, they too need repairs. For decades, AAR, a worldwide independent provider of aviation services, has offered a wide range of aerospace services for militaries around the globe.
“This include supply and repair solutions, whole aircraft depot level service, organizational and intermediate level maintenance, component repairs, aircraft modification and supply, and composite parts manufacturing. We also manufacture hard wall shelters for militaries to use while deployed, along with all the aircraft pallets used by the DoD. We even also sell whole aircraft and engines when needed. For aircraft services our offerings range from transactions, to PBL, CLS, and other long term arrangements,” said John Cooper, SVP Global Government and Defense.
AAR offers different services to all branches of the military, such as component repairs to the Army and Air Force, wholesale depot and supply programs to the United States Air Force and Navy and straight supply to the DLA.
“Our field-based maintenance has recently expanded into Army programs. We also supply various aviation services to the US Department of Justice, the US Department of State and foreign militaries,” Cooper added.
Cooper described that military airworthiness has different criteria then it’s civilian or Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)/ European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) governed counterparts.
“Often military aircraft airworthiness is not governed by the FAA, as such FAA 8130 repair tags are not required, but the requirement for authorized and quality repairs remain. This requires dditional due diligence on the part of the repair vendor or coordinator to ensure high quality authorized repairs,” Cooper said.
The needs of the military are unique, with different branches of service have different needs, and those needs changing even with that branches fleet.
“Even within a branch, often the customer desires to retain commerciality for the whole (or part) of an aircraft or fleet, which requires a unique and custom approach. Or sometimes a fleet will be 100 percent military designation, removing all FAA/EASA requirements,” Cooper said.
The real difference Cooper said with taking on military work are the compliance requirement and the bidding process behind acquiring military orders.
“Government work adheres to additional, and in most case more stringent requirements, often in addition to FAA/EASA requirements. Each branch, and international customers, have unique sets of requirements, certifications and regulations to which we must comply. There is no one size fits all approach and the skill set of our team allows us to exceed expectations of governmental customers in a wide variety of countries,” Cooper said. “In the USA, there is a formal and rigid process to bidding United State Government requirements, and different but similar requirements to bid foreign work. The sales cycle is different for the different services we offer, with time frames ranging from days to years. Each bid and customer is unique and we work hard to exceed all expectations from customers.”
Cooper added that there are aspects of the civilian side of AAR’s work that the military has adopted into their own process requirements.
“We find military customers are readily accepting commercial best practices and beginning to utilize the cost saving inherent with acquisition of overhauled zero-time components and used aircraft. There is great value in doing this that has been utilized in the commercial sector for many years and is beginning to be better understood in military customers,” he said.
And while the requirements are different, Cooper said that it doesn’t bring on any additional challenges with working on military equipment opposed civilian.
“It’s not so much challenges, rather different requirements and contractual regulations. There is no difference in selling to a US customer or a foreign customer; each has internal rules and regulations set by their governments than selling commercially to a US customer or international customer; each has an internal set of requirements. AAR’s strength lies in our ability to remain agile and work with our customers to understand their needs and offer winning solutions,” Cooper said.
