GAO:Military Aircraft Fell Short on Readiness in Past Decade

[spazsinbad]

Another overall look: https://breakingdefense.com/2020/11/air ... worse-gao/

GAO: Most Military Aircraft Fell Short on Readiness in Past Decade [8 page F-35 extract attached below]
19 Nov 2020 Amy McCullough

"The vast majority of Defense Department aircraft, including all of the military’s most advanced fleets, fell short of their mission readiness goals over the past decade, according to a recent Government Accountability Office report....
[ https://www.gao.gov/assets/720/710794.pdf 12Mb ]

...F-35 Joint Strike Fighter
The Air Force’s F-35A and the Marine Corps’ F-35B did not reach annual aircraft availability goals from fiscal 2013 to 2019, while the Navy’s F-35C carrier variant hit that threshold in two of those years. For MC rates, the F-35A and F-35C reached their targets in two fiscal years, while the F-35B met its target once.

Last year, GAO said 52 percent of the F-35 fleet was ready to take on a combat mission, largely due to a lack of available spare parts. In 2018, the Defense Department had a backlog of 4,300 F-35 parts, though the Pentagon and Lockheed Martin are working to improve that pipeline.

DOD has also purchased F-35 parts in advance, an approach that hasn’t always worked out in its favor as the aircraft is updated over time.

“For example, 44 percent of purchased parts were incompatible with aircraft the Marine Corps took on a recent deployment,” according to the GAO. In addition, “DOD’s networks for moving F-35 parts around the world are immature, and F-35 customers overseas have experienced long wait times for parts needed to repair aircraft.”

F-35 sustainment costs are estimated at more than $1 trillion over the 60-year life of the program, making it DOD’s most expensive weapon system by far. Total operations and sustainment costs have ballooned from $55.6 million in fiscal 2011 to $2.2 billion in fiscal 2018, while maintenance costs have increased from $15.8 million to $758.4 million in the same time, according to the report. The F-35A accounted for the majority of those costs.

“The Air Force and Marine Corps recently identified the need to reduce their sustainment costs per aircraft per year by 43 [percent] and 24 percent, respectively,” GAO said.

When it comes to maintenance, GAO argues the Defense Department has a “limited capability to repair parts when they break.” The watchdog noted that, as of April 2019, the F-35 program “was failing to meet four of its eight reliability and maintainability targets, which determine the likelihood that the aircraft will be in maintenance rather than available for operations, including metrics related to part removals and part failures.”

In fact, the GAO claims DOD’s ability to repair parts is eight years behind schedule.

“DOD originally planned to have repair capabilities at the depots ready by 2016, but the depots will not have the capability to repair all parts at expected demand rates until 2024,” the report said. “As a result, the average time taken to repair an F-35 part was more than six months, or about 188 days, for repairs completed between September and November 2018—more than twice as long as planned.”

The Joint Program Office has taken several steps to address this issue, including taking less time to activate a depot, making sure parts are available earlier, and initiating performance-based logistics contracts to incentivize performance and cost improvements.

Air Force Magazine previously reported the F-35A had an MC rate of 61.6 percent in fiscal 2019...."

Source: https://www.airforcemag.com/gao-most-mi ... st-decade/

[doge]

https://www.gao.gov/assets/720/710794.pdf

Readiness/Mission Capable Goal Achieved Rate
The F-35 isn't that good, but it's surprising that it's not that bad when if compared to other Fighter Jets. Because, other Fighter Jets are worse!! ​WHAT'S GOING ON !?

https://www.businessinsider.com/new-rep ... is-2020-11

US military aircraft are nowhere near as ready as they should be — here's how bad the situation is
Ryan Pickrell Nov 21, 2020
US military aircraft, including several fighter jet types, have been falling short of their readiness targets for years, the Government Accountability Office, a congressional watchdog, reported Thursday.
The GAO evaluated 46 aircraft types and found that between 2011 and 2019, 24 aircraft never once achieved the required mission-capable rate.
The downward trend in aircraft readiness comes as the Department of Defense pumps tens of billions of dollars a year into sustaining the aircraft evaluated.

A lot of US military aircraft have fallen short of their readiness goals for the better part of a decade, including America's arsenal of fighter jets, according to a new government watchdog report.
Over the better part of the last decade, only three of 46 aircraft types in the US arsenal regularly met the service-established mission capable goals, and only one, the Air Force's UH-1N Huey, consistently met the readiness goal, the Government Accountability Office reported Thursday.
And, that's not even the worst of it.
From fiscal year 2011 to 2019, 24 military aircraft types, to include critical fighter aircraft like the Air Force's F-22 Raptor and the Navy's F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, never once achieved their required mission capable rates.
Mission-capable rates are an important readiness metric that is defined as the percentage of total time an aircraft can fly and execute at least one mission.
A chart released by the GAO in its latest report shows just how bad the aircraft readiness situation is.

"Average mission capable rates for the selected Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps aircraft have fallen since fiscal year 2011," the GAO reported, noting that there were, however, some increases in readiness for Army aircraft.
Of the 46 aircraft that GAO evaluated, 19 were more than 15 percentage points below their target readiness goals. In that group were 11 that were at least 25 percentage points off the mark.
Another 18 aircraft evaluated were 15 to 6 percentage points below their goal.
Although the US military spends tens of billions of dollars a year ($49 billion in FY 2018) on maintenance and sustainment, issues like unexpected repair demands, maintenance backlogs, parts shortages, and a diminishing manufacturing base are making it tough fighter jets like the F-22 and F/A-18E/F to hit their goals.

Looking just at the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, the Navy carrier-based fighter jet saw its operating and support costs jump by $1.13 billion to $3.29 billion between 2011 and 2018, at which point maintenance costs alone had climbed to $1.45 billion.
During that same time period, the mission capable rate for this particular aircraft dropped below 50 percent, GAO reported, acknowledging that its data and evaluation process are different from those of the Navy.
Some military leaders have tried to address the problem, but problems persist.
In mid-September 2018, then-Secretary of Defense James Mattis sent out a memo that demanded that Navy and Air Force fighter jets, specifically the F/A-18, F-35, F-22, and F-16, achieve a minimum mission capable rate of 80 percent.
He wrote that this was necessary to ensure that US aviation assets "prove dominant over the battlefields of both today and tomorrow." But, that goal was not achieved, and readiness has actually gone down, despite some initial improvements following Mattis' memo.
Of the four US fighter aircraft types mentioned in Mattis' memo, only the F-35 has occasionally hit its readiness goals. The GAO reported that while the F-35 was on a downward trend between 2015 and 2018, it saw some improvement in fiscal year 2019.
An official from the Office of the Secretary of Defense told the GAO that the US military had decided to move away from narrow goals for specific aircraft and was instead exploring " a more holistic view of readiness."

https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/y ... as-gotten/

Here’s how bad the military’s aircraft readiness has gotten
2020/11/19 Stephen Losey
For years, the military’s critics have raised alarms about its aircraft readiness, and whether concerning numbers of airplanes and helicopters have not been ready to fly.
A new report from the Government Accountability Office released Thursday shows just how bad the problem has gotten — not just in the Air Force, but also in the Navy, Marine Corps and Army.
In the report, which was requested by Congress, GAO said that it studied readiness rates for 46 aircraft across those four services between fiscal 2011 and fiscal 2019. Of those, only three met their annual mission-capable goals for a majority of those years: The Navy’s EP-3E Aries II and E-6B Mercury and the Air Force’s UH-1N Huey helicopter. The EP-3 hit seven of its annual goals, the E-6B hit it during five years, and the UH-1N met its goal during all nine years.
Even more concerning, 24 of the aircraft GAO reviewed never met their annual goals once in that nine-year span.
The average annual mission-capable rates for selected Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps aircraft decreased overall since 2011, according to the GAO. The average mission-capable rate for the selected Army aircraft slightly increased.
Mission-capable rates are the percentage of total time when an aircraft can fly and perform at least one mission, GAO said, and is one of the key metrics used to assess the health and readiness of an aircraft fleet.
Readiness problems are especially worrisome because the Defense Department spends tens of billions of dollars each year to sustain weapon systems such as aircraft. Of all the costs a weapon system will incur during its entire life cycle, operating and support costs — including spare parts, depot and field maintenance, personnel and engineering support — typically account for about 70 percent of those expenses.

But large swaths of the military’s aircraft fleet were not anywhere close to meeting their readiness goals, GAO found. Of the 46 aircraft reviewed, 19 were more than 15 percentage points below the readiness goals set by their services, including 11 that were 25 percentage points or more below-goal. Another 18 aircraft were anywhere from six to 15 percentage points below their goals.
GAO focused on manned fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft supporting combat-related missions, but did not review other aircraft focusing on other missions such as training or moving high-priority passengers or cargo.
There are a variety of complicating factors hurting the military’s ability to keep its least-ready airplanes in the air, GAO’s report said.
The Air Force’s B-1B Lancer bomber, for example — one of the planes that never met its goals — is aging and has had its service life extended. The B-1 is also dealing with unscheduled maintenance, and a shortage of and delay in acquiring spare parts that worsens a maintenance backlog, GAO said.
During his nomination hearing last August, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. John Hyten told lawmakers that just six of the Air Force’s 62 B-1s were mission-capable at that time. Hyten said in the hearing that deployment after deployment was “just beating the heck out of” the B-1, leaving dozens either in depots for maintenance or otherwise down for other problems or inspections. The B-1 was also grounded in 2018 over problems with its ejection seats, and again in 2019.
The Air Force’s C-5M Super Galaxy, C-130J Super Hercules and F-22 Raptor are also facing problems with the unexpected need for repairs and parts replacement, unscheduled maintenance and parts shortages and delays. Some of the manufacturers who make or supply spare parts needed by the C-130J and F-22 are drying up, and some parts used by the C-130J are becoming obsolete and unavailable.
The Navy’s F/A-18E and F Super Hornet is also struggling with a service life extension, unexpected repairs and parts replacements, delays in depot maintenance and a shortage of trained maintainers and supply shortages. And the Marine Corps’ MV-22B Osprey faces unexpected parts replacements, a lack of access to technical data needed for maintenance, not enough maintainers, and parts shortages.

The F-35 Lightning II’s rates trended downward from fiscal 2015 through fiscal 2018, GAO said, before improving slightly in 2019. Overall, the F-35 recorded an increase in mission-capable rates from fiscal 2012 to 2019.
The other Air Force aircraft, in addition to the B-1, that never met their readiness goals in any of the nine years were the C-17 Globemaster III, the C-130J, the F-15C/D Eagle, the F-16 Fighting Falcon, the F-22 Raptor and the CV-22 Osprey.
In the Navy, the KC-130T Hercules, C-2A Greyhound, C-130T Hercules, E-2C Hawkeye, E-2D Advanced Hawkeye, F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet, and MH-60S Seahawk never met readiness goals.
For the Marine Corps, the KC-130T and KC-130J Super Hercules, AV-8B Harrier II, F/A-18 A-D Hornet, AH-1Z Viper, CH-53E Super Stallion, MV-22B Osprey, and UH-1Y Venom consistently missed the mark.
And three Army helicopters — the AH-64 Apache, CH-47 Chinook and UH/HH-60 Black Hawk — never met their service’s goal.
The military has tried to improve its readiness rates in recent years — most publicly in September 2018, when former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis released a memo ordering the Air Force and Navy to get mission-capable rates for the F-22, F-16, F-35, and several variants of the Navy’s F/A-18 aircraft up to at least 80 percent by the end of 2019.
That didn’t happen, however. While there was some improvement, the services never met that goal, and it has since been quietly dropped.

The Navy told the public in late September 2019 that the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and EA-18G Growler had met the 80 percent goal, GAO said. But GAO’s own analysis showed that wasn’t so. While those planes’ rates did improve throughout 2019 and hit 80 percent mission-capable at certain times that year, GAO said, when the data was averaged throughout the year, none of those planes consistently reached that goal.
Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles “CQ” Brown said at his nomination hearing in May that the Office of the Secretary of Defense decided that the 80 percent goal was not a requirement in fiscal 2020. An OSD official told GAO that the department had decided to move away from a goal focusing narrowly on selected aircraft, in favor of a “more holistic view of readiness.”
At that hearing, Brown also cited peaks of readiness for the F-16, F-22 and F-35 at certain points throughout 2019. But the actual year-long average mission capable rates for those planes were lower — in some cases, considerably lower — than those high-water marks.

Other figures

[charlielima223]

Would be nice to know the GOA's criteria for their report.

[XanderCrews]

Readiness/Mission Capable Goal Achieved Rate
The F-35 isn't that good, but it's surprising that it's not that bad when if compared to other Fighter Jets. Because, other Fighter Jets are worse!! ​WHAT'S GOING ON !?

Useful idiots. Theyre told something and then have no numbers or reference to use as comparison.

I was once enjoyed watching someone collapse after they complained that the F-35 had adjusted the numbers to get to super sonic flight adding + 8 seconds to get there. This was a very big deal apparently, Then I asked "with the new downgraded numbers of +8 seconds, what does that make the total time, and how does it compare to other aircraft?" They had no idea. They just parroted the bad news.

"_______ +8 seconds= ________ total seconds. please fill in the blanks" they twisted themselves into knots.

The people whining about ALIS can't tell you the system its replacing. They can't tell you what the comparative costs are. They can't give comparitive readiness numbers, or even what its included in them.

This is the constant smear campaign against the F-35.

IF you take this report completely at face value, the vaunted SH falls well short in cost, capability, and readiness compared to the F-35 which we have been told constantly for this entire span is worse. SH nearly tripled in costs while people were fainting about F-35 CPFH

screw them all with a rusty cactus

[Corsair1963]

GAO and CBO Reports aren't worth the paper it's printed on...........

[XanderCrews]

GAO and CBO Reports aren't worth the paper it's printed on...........

No doubt, At this point its time to bombard them with their own BS.

Why bother to make this some brilliant analysis about the accuracy or trade offs or authenticity of this report when these useful idiots gladly post unsourced and unverified internet comments on blogs as "proof"?? Just spam them at this point. Use the truth. Don't post a lie. but leave it to them to prove youre wrong. Make them try and suss out how this just can't possibly be true LOL


The bottom line is its not 2011 anymore. Theres more good F-35 news than bad. Especially comparatively. If the F-35 sucks and costs so much and has bad readiness, then everything else according to this report --sucks even worse. why fight it?

Its time to embrace the suck.

Especially with say Canada and the Super Hornet. Hurr durr SH costs less and has better readiness! Sure, other than the less than 50 percent mission capable and the tripling in price as the JSF shows cost reduction, and better readiness. Flip it on its head. its battle of regurgitated talking points for years that are absent any truth whatsoever (remember the 65 million dollar SH's Canada was promised for 6 years?)

SH is more expensive
SH costs more to maintain
SH has worse readiness

This is all easily proven and verified. The SH was so expensive it turned out the "interim fighter buy" disappeared overnight. amazing that huh? With every single advantage given to it by the Truduea government Canada passed.

This report should have about a hundred asterisks on it, no doubt. but use it anyway. If it makes the F-35 look better, and its official, go for it. Spam em and Slam em. its still at least a more reliable and official source. F-35 isn't the new kid anymore. Its up to everyone else to prove they play at the F-35s level, not the other way around.

Maybe someday the SH can do what the F-35 can