The US Air Force has performed the first accelerated packaged maintenance plan (PMP) on a deployed F-22 Raptor aircraft.
The PMP, performed by airmen of the 27th Expeditionary Aircraft Maintenance Unit, is scheduled, long-term, heavy maintenance on a fighter aircraft performed after every 300 flight hours.
It normally takes a month to complete, but deployed unit officials are tasked to accomplish an accelerated PMP in ten days.
During the PMP, a low observable team will select any panels the PMP inspection team may need to get into.
The inspection team will check their list to ensure everything is operational, and re-panel the aircraft and hand it back over to the low observable team for re-layering the jet.
An aircraft is grounded and will not be allowed to fly until it has gone through a proper inspection once it comes within 30 to 40 flight hours to its next scheduled PMP.
