has announced that the Shadow Tactical Unmanned Aircraft System programme received the Best PBL (Performance Based Logistics) Implementation award at the 7th Annual Defense Logistics Awards ceremony. This award was established to “honour, recognize and promote the logisticians in the U.S. Department of Defense and the Defense Industry that have made a significant contribution to military logistics.”
PBL allows the U.S. military to partner with industry to secure integrated life cycle support for components, sub-systems and systems, increasing asset readiness and minimizing total cost of ownership.
“AAI’s Shadow TUAS is the most utilized tactical unmanned aircraft system today having accumulated nearly 590,000 flight hours to date,” says Senior Vice President and General Manager of AAI Logistics & Technical Services Diane Giuliani. “That record results from quality design and manufacturing, skilled military operators, and robust maintenance and logistics support. Our AAI/Army UAS Project Office team implements and refines best practices and continuous improvement methodologies to achieve an exceptionally high average availability rate of 97 percent. In addition, we’ve helped our customer maintain or decrease associated cost of ownership while the fleet size has grown aggressively.”
The team’s achievements include the rapid fielding of several system reliability enhancements, including a new parachute that has reduced aircraft damage during parachute recoveries by 62 percent, as well as a new oil pump system that eliminated cold-weather oil flow-related incidents.
In addition, strategies like AAI’s successful public/private partnerships with Letterkenny Army Depot and Tobyhanna Army Depot set up an efficient supply chain in which AAI’s field service representatives provide an important first line of defence in the field for Shadow TUAS repairs and maintenance, with depot-level support for additional infrastructure and labour.