Marine Corps prototyping AI tools for aviation supply, predictive maintenance
Marine Corps prototyping AI tools for aviation supply, predictive maintenance
Publish Date: 2026-04-20 17:48:00
Source Domain: defensescoop.com
The Marine Corps is prototyping artificial intelligence tools to inventory aviation supplies and predict aircraft maintenance issues, officials said, a burgeoning initiative the service hopes will help shed “outdated” ways of keeping its flying fleet ready.
The effort, officials said, is meant to help maintainers and logisticians quickly identify needed aircraft parts, order those parts more efficiently and then — with an AI system the Marine Corps intends to roll out this summer — forecast replacements based on historic performance data.
“Let’s change it before it needs to be in the air, declare an emergency, land in some place we don’t want it to land, etc.,” Lt. Gen. William Swan, deputy commandant for aviation, said during a panel at the Sea-Air-Space conference on Monday. “That’s the whole idea: supply first, then maintenance, and then the op[erational] stuff pulls together.”
Aircraft maintenance is an enduring, expensive issue across the military, made difficult by aging platforms, personnel shortages and competitive, congested supply chains. In a media roundtable last week, Swan said the Marine Corps’ aviation arm was “on average” around 62-64% mission capable. Training squadrons, he said, had a lower score.
In its annual aviation plan released in February, the Marine Corps said it is making AI central to helping combat those woes, in part by fostering a “data-enabled culture” within its aircraft sustainment community and attempting a more proactive approach to fixes.
The Corps’ AI effort falls under Project Eagle, a “strategic blueprint” for its Aviation Combat Element meant to balance crisis response with modernization. A significant shift in the service’s aviation plan centered around AI, which was only briefly referenced in last year’s tome.
While the aviation plan emphasizes the new tech in comparison to previous years, it noted the AI and machine learning development effort for…
