F-35s Fully Mission Capable Only 27 Percent of the Time
The US military’s F-35 Lightning II stealth aircraft have a problem with spare parts, and it’s keeping the planes out of the sky, according to a new report by a government watchdog.
“F-35 aircraft were unable to fly nearly 30% of the May-November 2018 time period due to spare parts shortages,” according to an April report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO). The report further notes that during that time, the Pentagon “had a repair backlog of about 4,300 F-35 parts.”
“While DoD is taking various actions to improve F-35 spare parts availability so that aircraft can fly and perform their missions, it will likely continue to struggle to meet warfighter requirements — due to how it is planning for and allocating spare parts,” the report stated.
Further, the report finds that only 27% of all F-35 aircraft were fully mission capable (FMC) during that time, with roughly half of the total F-35 fleet being considered mission capable (MC), meaning they can at least perform their core functions.
