Navy Fighter Readiness Nearing 80 Percent Mission Capable Target
By: Ben Werner
April 5, 2019 12:58 PM
CAPITOL HILL – The Navy now boasts its Super Hornet fleet is routinely 63 to 75 percent mission capable, a significant jump from the fall when the Navy struggled to keep half of its F-18s ready to fly.
In September, then-Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis issued a memo to the service secretaries mandating “a minimum of 80 percent mission capability rates for our FY 2019 Navy and Air Force F-35, F-22, F-16 and F-18 inventories — assets that form the backbone of our tactical air power — and reducing these platforms’ operating and maintenance costs every year, starting in FY 2019.
At the time, on any given day close to 50 percent of the Navy’s Super Hornet strike fighters were not mission capable. Responding to the Mattis memo, the Navy invited industry leaders to evaluate its process for maintaining Super Hornets and delivering replacement parts, Rear Adm. Scott Conn, the Navy’s director of air warfare, said during a Thursday hearing before the House Armed Services tactical air and land forces subcommittee.
https://news.usni.org/2019/04/05/42436
