Have you ever looked for details beyond budgetary information for a weapon system or platform? If so, the Air Force Cost Analysis Agency (AFCAA) maintains a system called the Air Force Total Ownership Cost (AFTOC) which is a congressionally mandated compilation of over 23 official Department of the Air Force (DAF) data sources.
AFTOC is a designated Authoritative Data Source and houses discoverable, reliable, and trustworthy financial data for all DAF weapons systems from 1998 to present. The AFTOC database adds 30GB of cost information on a quarterly basis for over 100 weapon systems including Air Force One, the comprehensive fighter fleet, tankers, transport aircraft, and space systems such as satellites and ground stations. AFTOC has agreements with nearly two dozen different data systems providing various information on a regular basis. Some of the major feeder systems are:
• Financial Data: Air Force General Accounting & Financial System, Re-Engineered (GAFS-R). GAFS-R provides quarterly updates.
• Logistics Data: Integrated Logistics Supply System (ILS-S) provides supply data to AFTOC on a monthly and daily basis.
• Flight Utilization Data: The Reliability & Maintainability System (REMIS) provides AFTOC with a quarterly feed of flying hours & inventory data by tail number.
• Fuel: The Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) provides a daily feed of fuel data, which details how much fuel was provided for Air Force aircraft.
With so many systems providing data on a quarterly, monthly, or even daily basis, the enormous size and complexity of the AFTOC system becomes readily apparent and AFTOC analysts must act fast to ingest data from disparate feeder systems before the data is lost forever. These experts connect, classify, and bucketize over 30 billion data points, ~$200B of annual obligations in a standard structure by weapon system to paint a complete picture users can access 24/7 on the AFTOC website. Further, the AFTOC team maintains a comprehensive user guide, and video training library! Read the full article about AFTOC in the December 2025 SAF/FM Online Newsletter and visit the AFTOC website to explore the resources available to you.
