ACC Unveils New Way to Measure Readiness

Air Combat Command is changing how it measures and tracks fleet readiness, aiming to simplify the way it tracks and communicates the material condition of its airplanes.  

“Readiness Informed Metrics” or RIM, as the command’s new system, and if focuses on three key numbers at its core: 

Total aircraft in a fleet 
The number of aircraft needed to fulfill operational requirements 
The number of aircraft available to meet those requirements. 

CC director of logistics, engineering, and force protection Brig. Gen. Jennifer Hammerstedt told Air & Space Forces Magazine in an interview that the new approach “really helps at the strategic level” to grasp the command’s ability to field forces. “And then down at the tactical level, a wing commander can look at their entire fleet, tail by tail, and go … ‘OK, we’ve got X number of aircraft down for maintenance. What are we doing? What is our plan? It kind of just jumps out a little bit differently. So what we’re doing is not high order calculus or anything. … I guess you could almost say [it’s] an inversion of the traditional rates.” 

The Air Force traditionally tracks and reports on a host of data that add up to various readiness measures, most of which only experts can understand. Some using mission-capable rates— the percentage of the fleet capable of performing at least one of its assigned missions over time—are divulged publicly. Others, such as break and fix rates—the percentage of aircraft requiring maintenance before they can be mission capable and how fast they can be fixed in a set amount of time—are more closely guarded. 

RIM will also be closely guarded. Instead of percentage rates, it will offer three whole numbers, allowing commanders to clearly see the size of their fleets and compare that to the numbers of aircraft required of them and the number they can generate.

“Talking about things with a whole number really helps at the strategic level,” Hammerstedt said. Defining operational requirements is “the most important part,” Hammerstedt said. From there, commands can use the Air Force’s flying hours program and the Global Force Management process to understand what’s expected of them for deployments. “What do you need for flying?” she said. “What do you need for fleet health? What do you need for ground training? What do you need for spares?”  

“Degraders” like jets in depot, in need of parts, or in need of maintenance come off that total.  

By using full numbers, the hope is to make the impact more tangible. “That was kind of our goal: simplify so that we can more clearly see what the risk that we’re taking it is and what’s the impact,” said Hammerstedt. 

ACC is also implementing “tiered” reviews to study and review unit performance, Hammerstedt said. Wing commanders review their metrics daily; Numbered Air Force commanders review them twice per month, and ACC commander Gen. Kenneth S. Wilsbach is briefed monthly. 

The oversight focuses attention on problems and getting them fixed.

Take a hypothetical fleet of 100 aircraft, Hammerstedt said. The operational requirement might be 60 aircraft. If over the course of a month, only 52 are available, the given unit is short eight. In another circumstance, there might be 65 available, an overage of five.  

Wing commanders must brief Wilsbach and explain their numbers, citing whatever issues are getting in the way of meeting operational requirements. Thisshould “simplify and increase communication on our fleet health,” Hammerstedt said. It should also make it easier for Wilsbach and ACC headquarters to more quickly identify issues as they arise, she said, so they can quickly address “funding, maintenance, manpower, the age of our fleets, [and] divestment decisions.” 

ACC rolled out the new system to four bases in 2024: 

F-22s at Langley Air Force Base, Va.  
F-35s at Tyndall Air Force Base, Fla. 
F-15s at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, N.C. 
A-10s at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz. 

Since the end of April, all ACC units have been using RIM, and Hammerstedt said the system could be expanded to other Major Commands in the future.  

Transparency to Congress and the public will have to come by some other means, however. “I don’t think you’ll see them published for operational reasons,” Hammerstedt said. 

The Air Force has to balance operational security concerns about the state of its airplanes and squadrons with the need to publicly report useful data to ensure accountability to Congress and the public. Readiness metrics published by Air & Space Forces Magazine in the annual USAF Almanac, typically include mission capable rates, but as rates have declined the Air Force has become more reticent.

The unweighted average of 2024 mission capable rates was the lowest the service has reported in at least a decade.