killbilly
Vocals, Lyrics, Triangle, Washboard, Kittens
Oh you'll love this. Total Fraud/Waste/Abuse.
.... As well as translated maintenance manuals, ground support, and contract logistics and maintenance training for Afghan AF crews and flight training for pilots. Two years later, the planes were all grounded at Kabul airport, due to inadequate maintenance as the contractor began to transition to all-Afghan AF Mx, and the planes one by one ended up grounded. By 2013, the USAF cancelled the contract, and sold the planes to an Afghan construction company to be scrapped for ~6 cents on the dollar.......about $32,000 in total.
$468 million invested, for a $32,000 return.
This is a topic that probably deserves its own thread, but it's in context so I think it's okay here.
The GAO as well as members of HASC and SASC have looked really hard at this kind of problem. There is zero maintenance culture in Afghanistan. They'll use something until it breaks and then toss it aside - the idea of repairing or even doing preventive maintenance has to be taught and hammered in as a separate discipline.
The US had considered equipping the Afghans with a CAS-type of aircraft they could operate themselves - even something like a Super Tucano was ruled out because it was believed the Afghans would simply kill themselves trying to operate and maintain it. Someone posited that something like a deHavilland Beaver would be about as complex as they could handle and even that wouldn't last long. Not because they're not intelligent or stupid or somehow mentally deficient, but because there simply isn't an idea of maintaining/fixing things - they just don't do that. Boggles the mind, yeah?