The Real F-35 Problem We Need to Solve

[rangerrebew]

 The Real F-35 Problem We Need to Solve

Unless its logistics can be improved, the jet’s contributions to a major fight will be far less than Pentagon wargamers are counting on.
 
By Scott Cooper
September 29, 2020
 

When Pentagon strategists game out potential near-peer conflicts, they tend to plug in sortie-generation rates for the F-35 Lightning II that reflect the program’s original vision, not the far lower numbers that represent the actual state of things. But if planners intend to count on the F-35 in a battle of any but the shortest duration, the Pentagon and industry must urgently improve their ability to maintain and sustain the most technologically complex (and capable) aircraft in history. A performance-based logistics plan currently being discussed is worth considering.

I confess that as a young Marine Corps aviator, I cared not at all for logistics. My peers and I took for granted that our EA-6B Prowlers would be ready to go every time we were ordered into the skies over Iraq and Bosnia. And they were. In the 1990s and well into the 2000s, the maintenance readiness of our Vietnam-era jets rivaled that of aircraft two and three decades younger. In the early 2000s, the Navy Department decided to extend the EA-6Bs’ service life yet again. Soon our Prowlers were deploying nonstop around the globe, and flying at a rate significantly higher than in previous decades.

https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2020/09/real-f-35-problem-we-need-solve/168883/

[PeteS in CA]

... In the 1990s and well into the 2000s, the maintenance readiness of our Vietnam-era jets rivaled that of aircraft two and three decades younger. ...

Apples-bananas comparison. The USN had 3-4 decades' experience at that point with A-6-related logistics. Not so the F-35. The issue is real and needs to be resolved, but non-analogous analogies like this are silly.