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The Army, so far, has been reluctant to call on civilian help. It has only 10.6% of its total maintenance bill in private contracts in fiscal 1956. The Navy is lagging still farther behind with only 6%. The armed services should use private maintenance, many Navymen feel, only when it saves money. "It makes sense to go commercial," says Captain Robert M. Reynolds, maintenance chief of the Navy's Bureau of Aeronautics, "when you can ride on somebody else's costs, as in the case of the prime manufacturer." Otherwise, the Navy finds it hard to forget that costs in its own shops are $5 a manhour v. $8.18 in private shops. Yet, despite its reservations, the Navy is stepping up the jobs for private industry. Last week Dallas' Southwest Airmotive Corp. announced that it has been awarded the first Navy aircraft-engine overhaul contract to go to a nonmanufacturer since World War II.
No one really expects that private industry can take over all—or even the biggest part—of the maintenance job of the Armed Forces. But there are still many areas, notably in the Army and Navy, in which it could free servicemen for combat assignments without interfering with combat readiness. As weapons become more complex and technicians scarcer, the services will have to look more and more to private industry for help in maintaining the nation's military depots. Already military contracts for maintenance and overhaul have virtually created a new industry. Southern California Aircraft Corp., for example, started out as a service for executive planes, now deals almost exclusively in military maintenance. The Defense Department is in full accord with the farm-out trend, hopes to see it go much farther. Said a Defense official: "Anyone who isn't on the farm-out bandwagon by 1960 is gonna get kicked on."