Building the Mobility Aircraft Availability Forecasting (MAAF) Simulation Model and Decision Support System

JDMS, Volume 2, Issue 2, April 2005 Pages 57–69 © 2005 The Society for Modeling and Simulation International The Mobility Aircraft Availability Forecasting (MAAF) model prototype development and study effort was initiated to help the United States Air Force Air Mobility Command (AMC) answer the question, “How can we accurately predict mission capable (MC) rates?” While perfect prediction of aircraft MC rates is not possible, we investigate a simulation-based risk analysis approach. Current prediction methods utilize “after the fact” analyses and user opinion, making it difficult to perform quick, accurate, and effective analyses of potential limiting factors and policy changes, particularly in timesensitive situations. This paper describes the MAAF proof-of-concept model and decision support system built to provide AMC managers the dynamic, predictive tools needed to better forecast aircraft availability. The simulation component featured new capabilities for mobility modeling to include dynamic definition of the configuration of a mobility system, dynamic definition of the capabilities of the individual airbases within a mobility system, improved representation of the aircraft objects within the model, and a new approach to modeling aircraft maintenance including the realistic consideration of partially mission capable aircraft. The development efforts and sample experimental results are recounted in this paper.