Originally Posted by
Fuchs
There's a psychological problem associated with rotating equipment.
I'll explain this with the same story as used to teach it to me years ago:
There were two large taxi cab companies in a city. One company is known for its nice, clean taxis and the other one for rotten, smelly taxis. The vehicle types are the same, the drivers are quite exchangeable (age, gender, ethnicity ...).
The difference? The clean taxi cabs belong to one driver, while the other company lets its drivers drive a different taxi every day.
Similarly, the (if I remember correctly) USN solved its major aircraft readiness issues decades ago by assigning one or two aircraft to one senior mechanician each, giving him responsibility for it. The mechanicians who previously worked based on assigned tasks (sent to aircraft x to replace spare part y) began to care about the state of "their" aircraft. This extended into black market activities to scrounge spare parts and working much more hours per week than official.
Equipment that requires care or is exposed to much wear should NEVER be rotated, but be assigned to a organisational unit (if not individuals) permanently.
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