Left of Obsolescence: Supporting the Supply Chain in Army Aviation

Boosting readiness with a unifying sustainment framework

Army Aviation’s workhorses – the Chinook, Black Hawk, and Apache helicopters – are also its oldest. Many of their original core components date back decades, built by small suppliers that no longer exist or that have shifted focus to more profitable commercial markets. As these aircraft age, the cost to keep them flying continues to climb.

A recent GAO report, Weapon System Sustainment: Aircraft Mission Capable Goals Were Generally Not Met, found that sustainment costs are rising sharply as maintenance grows more complex and supply chains become unpredictable. What used to be a steady logistics rhythm is now a scramble for parts that are harder to find, slower to source, and more expensive to replace, often impacting aircraft readiness.

COVID-19 and global trade disruptions exposed how fragile the system has become. When small machine shops closed or overseas shipments stalled, aircraft sat waiting. The Army’s challenge is no longer just maintaining old aircraft; it’s sustaining an ecosystem of suppliers, tools, and technologies that were never meant to operate this long or support this level of demand.

Why the supply chain is breaking

Many of the original manufacturers that built today’s fleets have consolidated or exited defense production entirely to focus on the more profitable commercial industry. Those that remain face steep costs to retool for legacy components that no longer generate meaningful revenue. In a market driven by high-volume commercial demand, small-batch military parts are often deprioritized, leading to long lead times and unreliable delivery schedules.

This hollowing out of the industrial base has left the Army with few domestic options and heavy reliance on foreign materials. Tariffs, geopolitical tension, and the loss of critical suppliers have compounded the strain.

The result is a sustainment model that can’t keep pace with today’s operational tempo.

A unifying sustainment framework

Army Aviation can’t afford for readiness to continue to slip. It needs a sustainment framework that proactively fuses data intelligence, supply network flexibility, and advanced manufacturing to act early and decisively.

Astrion’s Reliant Core framework reflects that kind of integration. Developed and refined through years of support to the Army’s Aviation and Missile Command (AMCOM), it is a proven reliability-centered maintenance (RCM) methodology that combines advanced data science, system reliability engineering, and sustainment analysis to improve fleet readiness, reduce life-cycle costs, and extend aircraft availability.

By embedding failure analysis, condition-based maintenance, and reliability scoring into Army decision processes, Reliant Core provides defense organizations with a disciplined and proven method to sustain operational effectiveness and modernize maintenance practices.

Addressing systemic sustainment gaps

Reliant Core integrates three complementary strengths that address different pressure points in the sustainment cycle:

1. Data fusion for proactive sustainment

RIMFIRE (Reliability & Improvement through Failure Identification & Reporting) is a software-enabled process and series of tools that drives component failure analysis and optimizes field maintenance. Working with maintenance crews, engineers, and inspection staff, Astrion develops models that can predict failure rates and probability, investigate impacts, and inform maintenance decisions.

This approach has delivered a real impact. One RIMFIRE study overturned a potential grounding of more than 1,900 aircraft by proving a turbine-disk defect posed no safety risk, avoiding an estimated $200 million in unnecessary costs.

In another example, through the AMCOM G-3 RCM program, Astrion’s data scientists analyzed millions of maintenance records to pinpoint high-failure components and adjust service intervals. Their findings informed updates such as the H-60 main-transmission oil filter replacement, which cut bypass events by more than 40 percent and reduced maintenance hours across the fleet.

In addition, the Astrion RCM team’s integrated artificial intelligence (AI) tools increased predictive accuracy by up to 40 percent across several aircraft types and saved roughly 3,700 analyst hours annually, allowing faster, data-driven decisions on maintenance priorities.

2. Sourcing flexibility that fills the gaps

Even the best data can’t overcome a part that no longer exists. When traditional supply chains falter, Reliant Core activates alternative pathways to fill the gap. Working with vetted industry partners, Astrion identifies and qualifies alternate manufacturers capable of producing legacy components and then guides them through the necessary certification processes.

3. Advanced manufacturing for “last mile” solutions

When no existing supplier can produce the part, advanced manufacturing becomes the last-mile solution, stepping in when traditional sourcing options are exhausted. Astrion partners with organizations to reproduce components using reverse engineering and 3D printing technology. Astrion’s Reliant Core™ framework positions the company to support the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command’s Systems Readiness Directorate (SRD) with the engineering rigor, test-and-evaluation expertise, and digital integration capabilities needed to ensure Army aviation systems meet airworthiness standards and can be seamlessly integrated into fielded fleets. By leveraging Reliant Core, Astrion can help SRD enhance readiness, accelerate certification timelines, and strengthen sustainment across the aviation enterprise.

A program management approach to sustainment

Reliant Core applies a program management-forward approach, working directly with defense program acquisition leaders to assess fleet-wide risk, prioritize interventions, and broker solutions across the industrial base.

The framework allows program leaders to look across their entire fleet and answer critical questions: Where will shortages emerge in the next two to five years? Which components can be reproduced through advanced manufacturing? Where do we need to cultivate new suppliers or certify existing ones to enter the market?

In some cases, that means working with prime contractors to certify smaller vendors for limited production runs. In others, it means standing up onshore manufacturing capability to reduce foreign dependency.

By integrating data, sourcing intelligence, and engineering expertise, Reliant Core gives Army Aviation leaders the visibility and options they need to anticipate problems, validate alternatives, and sustain legacy platforms with confidence, long before obsolescence becomes a readiness crisis.