This on-going quagmire was recently highlighted in an article by Vice titled, “America’s Military Can’t Repair Its Own $1.7 Trillion Jet.” They note, ‘Only about half of the U.S.’s fleet of F-35 fighter jets is operational at any time due to difficulties with repairs, which must go through contractors.’
The outlet cited a fresh report from Government Accountability Office (GAO), a bipartisan watchdog group at the Capitol, wrote on how many of the F-35s are sitting dormant and inoperable as they wait to be serviced.
The F-35 fleet mission capable rate—the percentage of time the aircraft can perform one of its tasked missions—was about 55 percent in March 2023, far below program goals.
The program was behind schedule in establishing depot maintenance activities to conduct repairs. As a result, component repair times remained slow with over 10,000 waiting to be repaired.
DOD has estimated overall costs for the program at more than $1.7 trillion over its life cycle, with the majority of the costs, about $1.3 trillion, associated with sustaining the aircraft.
The reason for these delays are because the ability to repair these jets have been contracted to outside sources, with most of the repairs being outsourced to the defense contractors that built the weaponry and holds patents on the schematics for them.
Vice wrote: ‘The goal has long been for the Pentagon to take over routine maintenance of the aircraft, but it’s not going well. When something breaks on the F-35, it takes the Pentagon an average of 141 days to repair it. That’s a long time for a jet to be grounded, but it’s actually an improvement from the last time the GAO conducted the survey in 2017. Back then it took the DoD 172 days to fix a piece of the jet. The goal is to get that number down to 60.’
Program officials anticipated having greater repair material starting in the second half of 2023, helping to steadily improve repair times. These officials also told us that they were still years away from achieving the program’s goal.
GAO wrote in their report
Vice went on to report:
Other indicators have gotten worse, not better. In 2019, there was a backlog of 4,300 parts waiting on repair. In 2023, that number is up to 10,000, but the GAO did say that some of this is due to an increased number of F-35s overall. The problem of waiting on repair parts has gotten so bad, however, that the DoD is simply buying new parts instead of waiting to repair old ones.
According to the GAO, the Pentagon is 12 years behind schedule in getting its repair shops up and running. The military needs to be able to repair 68 individual components itself. The list includes stuff like ejection seats, landing gear, and the power thermal management system. Right now, it can only repair 44 of the components. Everything else has to go through contractors.
According to DoD officials, this is a practice that program officials do not believe is a sustainable solution.
Delays in standing up the F-35 program’s depot repair capacity has had several effects, including slow repair times, a growing backlog of components needing repair, and lower aircraft readiness.
GAO added
As mentioned in GAO’s report and Vice’s article that is problem is nothing new. In May CBS’ 60 Minutes did a segment on the America’s overspending and exuberant military costs, and within that 60 Minutes piece they pointed out the red tape the military has to go through to get their stuff repaired via these defense contractors.
Louis Rossman, a right-to-repair advocate, highlighted this in a short video as well. He asserts that this speaks volumes to what the United States says they say they are but what the country actually is and the people is different, and questions, “what are really defending?”
Again, this problem has existed for years. In 2019 The New York Times published an article about this as well. Capt. Elle Ekman, a logistics officer in the United States Marine Corps., explained the issue with right-to-repair in the military including his own experiences in the Marines.
A few years ago, I was standing in a South Korean field, knee deep in mud, incredulously asking one of my maintenance Marines to tell me again why he couldn’t fix a broken generator. We needed the generator to support training with the United States Army and South Korean military, and I was generally unaccustomed to hearing anyone in the Marine Corps give excuses for not effectively getting a job done. I was stunned when his frustrated reply was, “Because of the warranty, ma’am.”
I first heard about the term from a fellow Marine interested in problems with monopoly power and technology. A few past experiences then snapped into focus. Besides the broken generator in South Korea, I remembered working at a maintenance unit in Okinawa, Japan, watching as engines were packed up and shipped back to contractors in the United States for repairs because “that’s what the contract says.” The process took months.
With every engine sent back, Marines lost the opportunity to practice the skills they might need one day on the battlefield, where contractor support is inordinately expensive, unreliable or nonexistent.
I also recalled how Marines have the ability to manufacture parts using water-jets, lathes and milling machines (as well as newer 3-D printers), but that these tools often sit idle in maintenance bays alongside broken-down military equipment. Although parts from the manufacturer aren’t available to repair the equipment, we aren’t allowed to make the parts ourselves “due to specifications.”
How pervasive is this issue for the most powerful military in the world? And what does it mean for a military that is expected to operate in the most austere and hostile environments to not possess the experience, training or tools to fix its own very technical equipment?
To compound the impact of increasingly technical military systems, a new set of political philosophies favorable to corporate consolidation emerged in the 1970s, leading to merger waves across the civilian sector. Strategists in the national security world responded by arguing that the Defense Department needed to become a better customer in order to have access to this commercially developed technology. Consequently, the department decided that it needed to be more cooperative, and less aggressive, when negotiating terms with commercial companies that produce military equipment or perform services in support of the military.
In alignment with this new paradigm, policymakers simplified the Federal Acquisition Regulation in 1994 and 1995, exempting “commercial items” from a large portion of the rules (as well as expanding the definition of what is a commercial item to include goods that could be seen as specialized military goods). Congress also encouraged federal agencies to purchase commercial items “to the maximum extent practicable.” These changes fueled high rates of commercial purchases, which, coupled with consolidation in the defense industry, contributed to the Defense Department’s increased use of commercial technology and the negotiation of single-source contracts.
Ultimately, the power dynamics shifted between the Defense Department and commercial industry, forcing the department to accept warranties, contracts or prices that it could previously avoid — all thanks to changes in research and development funding, regulations and a lack of competition.
The effects of the right-to-repair paradigm will become only more significant and restrictive as older military vehicles and systems are replaced with equipment that is more complex and involving more electronics. Already complicated equipment designs lead to situations where the manufacturer is the only source for repairs.
AUTHOR COMMENTARY
How say ye, We are mighty and strong men for the war?
Jeremiah 48:14
This just compounds on the already existing problems the U.S. military has and has had for sometime, especially in recent years when you consider that the branches are faces shortages and failing to meet recruitment goals, as the training and standards continue to fall into obscurity and nothing more than a glorified elementary gym class.
And yet the warwhores in Washington are doing everything they can to foment a larger war with Russia, and start one with China, among others. But this of course benefits the defense contractors, the bankers, and the lobbyists. After all, Lloyd Austin, the secretary of defense, was a board member at Raytheon, the second largest defense contractor in the United States.
[7] Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? [8] Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also? [9] For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? [10] Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. (1 Corinthians 9:7-10).
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Two noteworthy mentions that the American Military is in deep doo doo, and trust me this is only two of many canaries in the coal mine that US Troops are done:
1: Jovan Collazo, the recruit from New Jersey who hijacked a school bus with an unloaded M4 in Fort Jackson S.C. To get back to Jersey. Now he’s got both civil courts AND military courts ripping him sideways.
2: The case of the disappearing malfunctioning F-35 that inexplicably spit out the pilot when the ejection seat popped him out.
“Strongest military in the world,” no, it’s a paper tiger run by clowns and bruisers that are actually spineless wimps.
In a war the repair team at the defence contractors are high value targets. America done.
Bingo, especially when those greedy businessman decide to give the military the cold shoulder and not repair their junk unless they pay a pretty penny.
1 Timothy6:10 For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
KJV