The fleet’s mission-capable rate — or the percentage of time a plane can perform one of its assigned missions — was 55 per cent as of March 2023, far below the Pentagon’s goal of 85 per cent to 90 per cent, the Government Accountability Office said on Thursday.
Part of the challenges stem from a heavy reliance on contractors for maintenance that limits the Pentagon’s ability to control depot maintenance decisions. Delays also arise from spare parts shortages, inadequate maintenance training, insufficient support equipment, and a lack of technical data needed to make repairs.
Because of the Pentagon’s inane IP laws, maintenance on these planes is a bureaucratic nightmare: defense contractors are able to limit maintenance of these things to only those they contract because of IP restrictions and are not required to teach the military jack shit. Meanwhile, they’re essentially a paperweight half the time because they’re not getting proper maintenance.
How are we supposed to patrol the Arctic with a plane that needs an American private subcontractor to perform essential maintenance on it?
When the pilot ejected is guaranteed that the plane is a total loss. The ejection system triggers a number of things other that the ejection mechanism. All of the secure communication equipment erases itself to prevent it or is key material from falling into unauthorized hands. The plane doesn’t squak its position so that it is harder for someone you don’t want to have access to the plane to find it. Had the plane been lost in territory that the US doesn’t control or that is controlled by an unfriendly country the US wants it to be hard for them to know that the jet is down and where it is so that the US has a better chance of getting there first. The probably can’t be disabled to prevent an, “Oops, I forgot to turn it on” mistake in unfriendly territory and to reduce the risk of it not working.