Research for Life-Cycle Costs

CNA was asked to help determine a cost-effective solution to the pending retirement of the KC-130F aircraft. The study was to be done in two phases. In phase I, we were to assess whether it made sense, from an economic and operational standpoint, to conduct a second Service Life Extension Program (SLEP) on the aircraft rather than procure new production KC-130s. The first SLEP, which was performed in the late 1980s and early 1990s, was done mainly to correct structural defects. The tasker asked us to use the Lockheed KC-130X as the new production model. This paper reports the results of phase I.