Soumen Saha

The last F-22A aircraft is scheduled for delivery in early 2012, so decisions must be made as to what tooling will be retained and what will be disposed of. The authors find that, for a modest, one-time additional cost of $17 million and a very small additional annual recurring cost, the Air Force can retain all F-22A unique government tools. They also find a difference of less than $1 billion between the costs of two different restart options.

When a weapon system ceases production, the tooling not needed for sustainment that cannot be repurposed must either be disposed of or stored. Storage is not free, but system-specific tooling might become necessary for a restart, and starting from scratch can be expensive, although some tools cost more to store than they are worth. The authors examine these tooling retention issues for the C-17 cargo aircraft.