Nearly half of that decline has occurred in the last seven months. Over the past few years, the cost of spares and depot repairs have continued to outstrip funding. Finally, as the age of our aircraft increased, we incurred greater costs and workloads to maintain readiness. Next year, the average age of our aircraft will be 20 years old. Even including planned procurements, in 2015 the average age will be 30 years.
Modernization is tomorrow s readiness.
If we don t modernize by replacing aircraft that are beyond their useful life and revitalizing those with life left in them, we can expect additional maintenance requirements, reduced reliability, and increased costs as these aircraft continue to age. That takes a toll on our people who must maintain and fly them. The intense demands we place on them as they perform Air Force missions around the world require highly motivated, highly skilled, professional airmen. We are committed to recruiting and retaining high caliber people. In 1997, we achieved our recruiting goal of 30,200 recruits 99 percent were high school graduates.