re: Pentagon’s $1.7T F-35 jets have ‘maintenance issues,’ finish missions barely half the time

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The GAO report also showed the $100-million-apiece F-35s are capable of performing missions just 55% of the time, and more than 10,000 of the aircraft have been grounded for repairs.

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Well is the actual number?

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I think this is another case of shitty reporting. I think (key word there) what the reporter is trying to say is of the 2,500 F-35s produced, there has been 10,000 instances of individual planes being grounded for maintenance issues. So, it would seem the average F-35 has been grounded for maintenance issues four times over its lifespan so far.

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Do we need f-35s?

With all our other aircraft we have ? Isn’t that enough already?

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You realize aircraft need constant maintenance. And those older aircraft face constant obsolescence issues to keep them flying.

It just the nature of the business.

There are over 20 countries in the world waiting in line to basically pay whatever it costs to get the F-35. That should tell you the state of the rest of the world.

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Gotta disagree here in terms of obsolescence.

Obsolescence is largely coming from bad (and probably dirty) contracting practices in the government’s acquisition programs over the years.

Either awarding contracts for specialty equipment to small startups with no alternatives, or awarding them to large corporations as sole-source contracts that mean the corporation can sell “updates” to parts/software to the government as often as they can produce it, lining their pockets.

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Then you dont understand the computers and systems that go into these planes.

Nobody is building you a processor from the early 2000s anymore, there is no foundry left to build them.

You are not replacing the parts with modern ones either because they are smaller and require different power requirements.

Obsolescence is a never ending battle in highly complex systems such as planes.

Why did they mothball the F-22?

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This is a huge mistake that the Air Force and Navy have made over and over going back to the 50s. When you design a single aircraft that can do it all, namely air-to-air combat, ground attack, bomber, reconnaissance) you’ll get a plane that can indeed do all those things, but it won’t be able to do any of them all that well.

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The part that gets me the most about the F-35 is now much business was involved. From day one, the plan was to make it exportable.

Yeah that 10,000 number seemed way too high to me as well.

According to Wiki, less than 1000 have been built as of September 2023

Its a play on words and percentages. For example, you can have 3 modes of readiness:

FMC: Full mission capable
PMC: Partial mission capable
NMC: Not mission capable

That 55% can be misleading. You might have a sortie sceduled that requires air to air combat and no bombing. That jet might not be mission capable of the bombimg but can do 100% of air to air. So its a PMC jet yet can do everything it needs for that ATA mission.

This is lazy reporting made to get more supply parts and possibly increase squadron manning.

But just think of the money we padded Mike Turner and the other warmongers with.

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The jet was lost in bad weather and the unidentified pilot apparently bailed from the cockpit before turning on the aircraft’s tracking system

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Local residents said their wasn't any bad weather, just blue skies. Anyone got a way to call up weather reports from then? Or better yet, recorded radar?

Boon
Doggle

F22s and upgraded F15s could do the mission for half the cost and twice the reliability