America’s Military Can’t Repair Its Own $1.7 Trillion Jet | Only about half of the U.S.’s fleet of F-35 fighter jets is operational at any time due to difficulties with repairs, which must go throu…::Only about half of the U.S.’s fleet of F-35 fighter jets is operational at any time due to difficulties with repairs, which must go through contractors.
I’m not going to try to explain mission readiness, this is low, but the target is closer to 70%, so while it isn’t great, it’s not like it’s half of what’s expected.
Jets are complicated, they spend a lot of time in maintenance and inspection for each out of flight, its because they’re optimized for performance while passenger jets are optimized for endurance, safety and cost.
F35s are terrible jets for peacetime, as are most fighter jets. For combat they’re probably a lot better, they’re basically f16s with worse maneuverability, but better range, sensors, weapons and of course stealth, 1 f35 is worth at least 3 f16s.
But even this doesn’t matter, the next generation will be 80% drones, drones have phenomenal mission readiness ratings, often 90% or higher.
I’ll chime in as well and agree with you. The author of that article doesn’t seem know what he is writing about. Sure, he is kind of quoting the GAO article (it didn’t link correctly for me from the article) but he doesn’t quite know the insane amount of maintenance any aircraft go through.
I think my old squadron (HH-60’s) only had about 50% of its birds ready at any given time. That was about normal since saltwater is absolute hell on just about anything made of metal. Also Jr. pilots are generally idiots and break things, so that is a thing.
Honestly, I read the GAO report and thought it was fairly normal for a newer piece of equipment.
That was about normal since saltwater is absolute hell on just about anything made of metal.
OMG, salt in the moisture in air around and inside light and precise metal parts, year round, my brain just connected these dots and felt pain. 🤯😬
Military helicopters are very resilient, I’ll give 'em that.
Aside from hydraulic struts being mostly exposed, most of the other bits are OK. The electronics are in solid metal boxes with really beefy connectors, so that is not too much of an issue either.
It’s the engines and the airframe that are the biggest issues. Engines have their own set of issues by themselves and misted saltwater amplifies those issues. The airframe is the worst though. Not only are they subject to normal stresses that cause micro-cracks like every aircraft, corrosion is accelerated due to bad operating conditions. An airframe is not something you would want to fail.
In short, almost all aircraft, military or not, should go through a phased inspection and repair cycle. As you move through the different phases (of which there are usually 4), the inspection gets deeper and more intense. The last phase usually involves tearing down the entire aircraft to its frame to conduct hyper-detailed inspections for cracks and corrosion. (My experience is limited to just private civilian fixed wing and naval military helicopters)
I came in to quote my own squadrons’ SH-60 readiness was typically 3 out of 6-7 birds. (SH-60F, so I’m old).
Sounds like we were in about the same time. I was stationed in Jax with HS-5, back in the day.
If I remember correctly, our squadron had both HH-60s and SH-60s? Somewhere, the MH designation got thrown in there and I am also too old to really keep track.
(I probably could still do an inspection with my eyes closed though.)
Yeah, I was left coast and Japan.
HS was a mix of SH-60F’s and HH-60H’s. But around 2010-2012, the F/B’s went away and the HS squadrons’ transitioned to MH-60’s, and the HSL squadrons’ went to the H-60R’s.
The HH-60H’s got their own squadrons’ that were specifically NSW support. East coast already had one, in VA, and they stood one up in SD.
HSC-84/85, I think. I also got out in 2012.
Ok, I remember hearing a little about those transitions when I was getting out in 2005. What you say makes sense since our role was SAR and anti-sub. (The SAR guys were responsible for dropping off and picking up SEALs as well.)
Thanks for validating my memories. Cheers, shippy.
I like it when it’s bad news they call it a 1.7 trillion jet, but when it’s good news they call it an 80 million one.
Let’s leave accurate military reporting to outlets specializing on military and aviation.
When something breaks on the F-35, it takes the Pentagon an average of 141 days to repair it.
That sounds bad, but it’s also completely out of context. Commercial jets probably stay grounded less than a day, but I have no frame of reference for fighter aircraft.
I watched a video about maintenence for commercial passenger jets recently. Light engine maintenence takes on the order of a week, heavy maintenence takes several months. For heavy maintenence, they literally disassemble every component of the engine, so even if everything goes perfectly, it still takes forever.
That said, I imagine they just swap a new engine into the plane while the old one is under maintenence.
Do you have a link to said video? Not because I disagree but because that sounds super interesting to watch.
Vice should do better reporting
If only it was the jets that are affected!
I don’t understand why anyone sends manned aircraft into battle when missiles, UAVs and satellite surveillance exists. Aircraft carriers were invented because those technologies didn’t exist at the time and then they just kept making them and filling them with insanely expensive aircraft.
this is going to become more and more common across all industries
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You’re almost as uniformed as the author, but at least you’re not publishing articles based around your ignorance of the subject.
If you want to learn more, and have some time to kill, here’s two good YT videos by established military channels.
Lazerpig - Memetastic/NCD, but knowledgeable https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CH8o9DIIXqI
Hypohystericalhistory - PhD. Military Historian, more serious
It wasn’t a good idea, but they not only made it work, it turned out to be better than expected (and I hated the thing).
We had a romance with the f14 from top gun and the f15 from other stuff, but we also learned that most of what they can do doesn’t really matter at all.
It’s like having the nicest, sharpest longsword and plate armor, when you’re hunting a sniper armed with a 50cal.
If this thing sees you first (which it probably will, both because of stealth and excellent radar/EOTS), then it can probably kill you before you know it’s there.
Short of a j20 or one of the handful of su57s there’s nothing out there that really stands a chance head to head, or even 3:1 really.
What an amazing use of our tax dollars, first ya overlook every other plane manufacturer make it a competition between Lockheed and Boeing… Fuck the American govt for pushing this shit on us. I want my Canadian tax dollars back for the JSF Program.
Exactly! How dare they spend American tax dollars paying American companies to employ American citizens!
Wait…
You moron, the JSF was funded by a bunch of countries.
Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) is a development and acquisition program intended to replace a wide range of existing fighter, strike, and ground attack aircraft for the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, and formerly Turkey.[1] After a competition between the Boeing X-32 and the Lockheed Martin X-35, a final design was chosen based on the X-35. This is the F-35 Lightning II, which will replace various tactical aircraft, including the US F-16, A-10, F/A-18A-D, AV-8B, EA-6B and British Harrier GR7, GR9s and Tornado GR4. The projected average annual cost of the program is $12.5 billion with an estimated program life-cycle cost of $1.1 trillion.[2]
How polite!
So are you saying you’re from one of those other countries and are mad about the spend? I could understand that. But from the rest of America, thanks for the donation.
Nnnnoooooo… I’m a big ol fat dumb Murikan. Rrraaa Rraaa raaa. Of course I want my money back, y’all said it was gonna be an international competition (between 2 American companies). F35 is a POS, you say its not? HALF OFNTHE FUCKING FLEET IS GROUNDED!! Get your head out of your giant asshole
Imagine if Canada and the other NATO members paid their fair share of defense. Or medical research.
That’s because we actually pay our infantry and treat them when they get home instead of tossing em on their ass and letting them become homeless
Regardless of how you treat them we’d still be subsidizing your defense. And we have some pretty wild disparities in how we treat people depending on weird shit.
It actually is and you should be greatful. If you don’t like it might as well move to China or Russia right now.
The fuck is wrong with you? Did you forget about Britain and Sweden? America has been ruining Canada for a fucking long time. We should have saidz fuck you and your shit missiles, we’re building the Arrow
