Ongoing Headaches With the F-35 Ripple Through the U.S. Military

• The F-35 program has suffered from years of delays and cost overruns as well as technical issues.
• These problems led to the Pentagon extending the service life of combat jets older than 30 years.
• A government watchdog said that while extensions keep jets flying, they don’t guarantee that they will meet future requirements.

The Pentagon is in a quandary after years of delays, cost overruns and technical problems with the F-35.

F-35s cannot fly in sufficient numbers. Older aircraft, such as the F-16, must be kept in operation to fill the gap. In turn, this means that older aircraft have to be kept in service for longer periods of time. This costs money and can lead to aging warplanes not able to fulfill their current missions.

“While service life extension programs are one way to keep current aircraft capable and in operation, they do not guarantee that those aircraft will be available when needed or that they will possess required capabilities to meet future needs,” The Government Accountability Office warns In a new report, the US tactical aircraft are discussed.

The F-35 is intended to replace several Cold War-era fighters and strike aircraft.

Despite making its first flight in 2006, the F-35 — which costs about $100 million apiece — still hasn’t been approved for full-rate production and remains in limited procurement.

An apparent plague has plagued the aircraft. There are endless numbers of bugsProblems with it Stealth coatingSustained supersonic flight, helmet-mounted display and excessive vibration from its cannon. Hit by lightning.

Although Lockheed Martin and the military have solved some of these problems, the cumulative effect of delays has been that the Air Force had to stop plans for the F-35. The F-16 should be replacedThe, which will continue flying until the 2040s.

“Over the last decade the Air Force and Navy have funded service life extension programs for F-16s and F/A-18 A-Ds — both originally expected to be replaced by F-35 — to address fatigue of structural components and keep the aircraft capable and in operation,” The GAO report stated.

The remarkable longevity of some aircraft — such as the B-52 bomber pilot 71 years old Oder the 41-year-old A-10 — tends to obscure the difficulty of keeping old warplanes flying. The original producers of parts and components are often shut down and no longer produce. Sometimes they cease to exist.

Russia’s air force has been ridiculed Poor maintenance has led to undercutting Its airpower in the Ukraine conflict. However, the US military has long been plagued by major readiness problems as have NATO countries like Germany. In 2020, there will be fewer than 10 Luftwaffe pilots. Typhoon fighters were operational.

The November 2022 GAO study, which examined readiness of 49 US military aircraft types between 2011 and 2021, was especially alarming.

“Only four aircraft types, none of which were fixed-wing fighter aircraft, met their annual mission capable goals in a majority of those years,” The watchdog warned.

This problem affects modern military hardware to a certain extent. Complex weapons — whether fighters, tanks, or aircraft carriers — seem prone to reliability and maintenance issues or to shortages of specialized and expensive spare parts.

However, the F-35 has been the symbol of aviation readiness woes. An GAO report April 2022 This was due to a lack in spare parts, maintenance equipment and ground crews lacking the technical information they required to maintain the aircraft.

These are important decisions. The Air Force and Navy together will spend $20.2 million a year in tactical aircraft development and procurement from now through 2027.

However, the services are trying balance those funds between three competing requirements: sufficient aircraft and capabilities in short-term, continuing affordability issues, and preparing to meet future needs.

Already, the Air Force’s 2023 budget proposes delaying the acquisition of 66 F-35s originally planned for 2023 to 2027. Meanwhile, the Navy is purchasing 31 fewer F-35s while delaying a service-life extension on the F-18E/F Super Hornet.

GAO called on the Department of Defense (DoD) to complete a comprehensive evaluation of its investments in tactical planes, including a risk analysis and how different aircraft programs are dependent on each other. The F-35 will not be fully fixed, and US airpower will continue to decline.