This ‘cloud in a box’ could save Air Force maintenance workers years of paperwork

Each time a KC-135 lands, it is greeted by a swarm of maintainers armed with binders and stacks of paper forms, sometimes tablets or laptops—all necessary to determine and document the aircraft’s readiness to fly again. Converting that information into a readable format for commanders to update can take 14 hours.

To speed turnaround time, the Air Force Rapid Support Office is developing a prototype “cloud in a box”—a portable data and computing center that can efficiently store maintenance records for every aircraft the service owns in a container the size of a window air conditioner.

“The goal is to digitize the flight line,” said Col. Nathan Stuckey, the military’s program executive officer for the Air Force’s Rapid Sustainment Office. Defense One“Having that maintainer, that digital support… to help them maintain and repair our airplanes.”

The product ticks three boxes: It’s a digital, cloud-based dashboard that displays maintenance data from multiple systems, a rugged box with computing power and storage, and the ability to access it all from a mobile device. Users can also load a cloud-based platform onto the box, called the Google Distributed Air-Gapped Appliance, which can operate even when unplugged.

Working with Google, the Air Force designed a “marketplace of input and output data” from several systems with “real-time readiness reporting” so data never has to be manually re-entered at a workstation, said Josh Marcuse, director of strategic initiatives for Google Public Sector.

The system does not need to be connected to the Internet to work.

“We need to have systems that will continue to function when our networks are attacked,” Stuckey said. “If you’re in the Pacific trying to repair a plane and your location loses all internet connectivity, that system still needs to function.”

Maintainers will be able to do their job, then reconnect the box to the network to update headquarters with mission-critical data, such as needed parts, which are available in seconds rather than hours. Less important information, such as a video to aid in repairs, is given lower priority, Stuckey said.

“The information that higher command needs to plan the fight, they know what aircraft are available. That kind of data can be prioritized, so the minute you get a call, it’s immediately visible to the higher echelon. If it’s lower priority data, you know, it might take a little while … to see it, but we do it in a way that the most important data is immediately available,” Stuckey said.

Stuckey said the second feature that could potentially change the way maintenance workers work is the ability to securely connect to personal devices.

“During the demo, I was able to use my personal phone, log into the device and access the dashboard. And that’s how it works. The vision is that the maintenance person will be able to use their mobile devices, tablets, phones to have access to what they need at their fingertips.”

Current demonstrations of the cloud-in-a-box have been limited to a handful of users over the course of a few days. But the goal is for the technology to become a trusted digital assistant for maintenance workers, starting with select units.

The plan is to field a prototype at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada and Minot Air Force Base in South Dakota, and conduct initial conceptual work in the coming months. Stuckey was hesitant to provide a more specific timeline because the product is going through the Defense Department’s cybersecurity certification process, known as an authorization to operate.

“We’re at a point where getting those approvals is very rapid … we’re starting to talk about months, not years, of being ready to go live” for initial and then expanded demonstrations, Stuckey said.