Submitted 1 year ago by L4s@lemmy.world [bot] to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3w5ay/america-cant-repair-its-own-dollar17-trillion-jet
America’s Military Can’t Repair Its Own $1.7 Trillion Jet | 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 throu…::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.
Let’s leave accurate military reporting to outlets specializing on military and aviation.
I like it when it’s bad news they call it a 1.7 trillion jet, but when it’s good news they call it an 80 million one.
When something breaks on the F-35, it takes the Pentagon an average of 141 days to repair it.
That sounds bad, but it’s also completely out of context. Commercial jets probably stay grounded less than a day, but I have no frame of reference for fighter aircraft.
I watched a video about maintenence for commercial passenger jets recently. Light engine maintenence takes on the order of a week, heavy maintenence takes several months. For heavy maintenence, they literally disassemble every component of the engine, so even if everything goes perfectly, it still takes forever.
That said, I imagine they just swap a new engine into the plane while the old one is under maintenence.
Do you have a link to said video? Not because I disagree but because that sounds super interesting to watch.
Vice should do better reporting
You’re almost as uniformed as the author, but at least you’re not publishing articles based around your ignorance of the subject.
It wasn’t a good idea, but they not only made it work, it turned out to be better than expected (and I hated the thing).
We had a romance with the f14 from top gun and the f15 from other stuff, but we also learned that most of what they can do doesn’t really matter at all.
It’s like having the nicest, sharpest longsword and plate armor, when you’re hunting a sniper armed with a 50cal.
If this thing sees you first (which it probably will, both because of stealth and excellent radar/EOTS), then it can probably kill you before you know it’s there.
Short of a j20 or one of the handful of su57s there’s nothing out there that really stands a chance head to head, or even 3:1 really.
What an amazing use of our tax dollars, first ya overlook every other plane manufacturer make it a competition between Lockheed and Boeing… Fuck the American govt for pushing this shit on us. I want my Canadian tax dollars back for the JSF Program.
Exactly! How dare they spend American tax dollars paying American companies to employ American citizens!
Wait…
You moron, the JSF was funded by a bunch of countries.
Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) is a development and acquisition program intended to replace a wide range of existing fighter, strike, and ground attack aircraft for the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, and formerly Turkey.[1] After a competition between the Boeing X-32 and the Lockheed Martin X-35, a final design was chosen based on the X-35. This is the F-35 Lightning II, which will replace various tactical aircraft, including the US F-16, A-10, F/A-18A-D, AV-8B, EA-6B and British Harrier GR7, GR9s and Tornado GR4. The projected average annual cost of the program is $12.5 billion with an estimated program life-cycle cost of $1.1 trillion.[2]
It actually is and you should be greatful. If you don’t like it might as well move to China or Russia right now.
The fuck is wrong with you? Did you forget about Britain and Sweden? America has been ruining Canada for a fucking long time. We should have saidz fuck you and your shit missiles, we’re building the Arrow
Imagine if Canada and the other NATO members paid their fair share of defense. Or medical research.
That’s because we actually pay our infantry and treat them when they get home instead of tossing em on their ass and letting them become homeless
If only it was the jets that are affected!
this is going to become more and more common across all industries
I don’t understand why anyone sends manned aircraft into battle when missiles, UAVs and satellite surveillance exists. Aircraft carriers were invented because those technologies didn’t exist at the time and then they just kept making them and filling them with insanely expensive aircraft.
InvertedParallax@lemm.ee 1 year ago
I’m not going to try to explain mission readiness, this is low, but the target is closer to 70%, so while it isn’t great, it’s not like it’s half of what’s expected.
Jets are complicated, they spend a lot of time in maintenance and inspection for each out of flight, its because they’re optimized for performance while passenger jets are optimized for endurance, safety and cost.
F35s are terrible jets for peacetime, as are most fighter jets. For combat they’re probably a lot better, they’re basically f16s with worse maneuverability, but better range, sensors, weapons and of course stealth, 1 f35 is worth at least 3 f16s.
But even this doesn’t matter, the next generation will be 80% drones, drones have phenomenal mission readiness ratings, often 90% or higher.
remotelove@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
I’ll chime in as well and agree with you. The author of that article doesn’t seem know what he is writing about. Sure, he is kind of quoting the GAO article (it didn’t link correctly for me from the article) but he doesn’t quite know the insane amount of maintenance any aircraft go through.
I think my old squadron (HH-60’s) only had about 50% of its birds ready at any given time. That was about normal since saltwater is absolute hell on just about anything made of metal. Also Jr. pilots are generally idiots and break things, so that is a thing.
Honestly, I read the GAO report and thought it was fairly normal for a newer piece of equipment.
avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
OMG, salt in the moisture in air aroundamd inside light and precise metal parts, year round, my brain just connected these dots and felt pain. 🤯😬
sartalon@futurology.today 1 year ago
I came in to quote my own squadrons’ SH-60 readiness was typically 3 out of 6-7 birds. (SH-60F, so I’m old).