{"id":177560,"date":"2019-08-18T18:58:00","date_gmt":"2019-08-18T23:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2019\/08\/18\/overpriced-and-underperforming\/"},"modified":"2019-08-18T18:58:00","modified_gmt":"2019-08-18T23:58:00","slug":"overpriced-and-underperforming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2019\/08\/18\/overpriced-and-underperforming\/","title":{"rendered":"Overpriced and Underperforming"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a>
Pathetic<\/i><\/div>\n

Over a quarter century into the program, the F-35 fleet is still exhibiting abysmal readiness rates<\/a>. <\/p>\n

This ia particularly concerning given that one of the selling points of the mistake jet was increased reliability:<\/p>\n

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighters in the operational test fleet at California\u2019s Edwards Air Force Base are suffering from low readiness rates that may threaten the successful completion of the crucial combat-testing phase of the program, as shown in a chart created by the Joint Program Office\u2019s Integrated Test Force and obtained by the Project On Government Oversight (POGO). <\/p>\n

The revelation that the F-35 program is struggling to overcome the last hurdle before it can legally move into full-rate production follows numerous recent reports, including by POGO as well as the Government Accountability Office<\/a>, indicating the most expensive weapon system in history is far from ready<\/a> to face current or future threats. The 23 aircraft in the test fleet achieved an abysmal \u201cfully mission capable\u201d rate of 8.7 percent in June 2019 according to the chart<\/a>, which covers December 2018 through mid-July 2019. A fully mission capable aircraft can perform all of its assigned missions, a particularly important readiness measure for multi-mission programs such as the F-35. The June rate was actually an improvement over the previous month, when the fleet managed a rate of just 4.7 percent. Since the beginning of operational testing in December 2018<\/a>, the fleet has had an average fully mission capable rate of just 11 percent.<\/p>\n

The Pentagon\u2019s operational testing director has stated that the test fleet needs an 80 percent availability rate to meet the demanding schedule of the program\u2019s test and evaluation master plan. <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The money quote is, “Newer aircraft like the F-22 and F-35 are averaging lower mission capable rates than the legacy aircraft they are slated to replace.”<\/p>\n

Our military industrial complex is increasingly dysfunctional, and I fear that it is only a matter of time before it collapses under its own prodigious weight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pathetic Over a quarter century into the program, the F-35 fleet is still exhibiting abysmal readiness rates. This ia particularly concerning given that one of the selling points of the mistake jet was increased reliability: The F-35 Joint Strike Fighters in the operational test fleet at California\u2019s Edwards Air Force Base are suffering from low …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[384,381,588],"class_list":["post-177560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-aviation","tag-defense-procurement","tag-fail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177560"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177560\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}