Blistering Highlights From The Latest F-35 Sustainment Hearing

[727Sky]

I have never liked the gold plated POS

Dan ParsonsView dan parsons's Articles

Inspired by a dismal Government Accountability Office report on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter's recent performance and maintainability, House Armed Service Subcommittee on Readiness Chairman John Garamendi, a Democrat from California, on April 28 vowed to “raise holy hell” until the program is brought back in line with operational requirements.
Air Force Lt. Gen. Eric Fick, head of the F-35 Joint Program Office, held his cool under fire and dutifully answered questions during the nearly two-hour hearing on Capitol Hill. Steven Morani, the acting assistant secretary of defense for sustainment, seemed more rattled by the pointed inquisition. Morani said 770 F-35s have been delivered to customers around the world as of last week.

Rep. John Garamendi opens his salvo at the F-35 Program Executive Officer. HASC video


The GAO report, released the same day as the hearing, can be found here.

It says that the F-35 continues to fall short of prescribed mission-capable rates, is consistently missing reliability targets and its maintenance costs have doubled. Across the board, the three variants in fiscal year 2021 did not meet the target for mission capable minimum performance by at least about 9 percentage points.
The F-35A in fiscal year 2021 was fully mission capable only half the time. The short-takeoff and vertical landing F-35B was fully mission capable less than 20 percent of the time, according to GAO. The Navy's F-35C had an FMC rate of just 9.5 percent. Fick did point out that the F-35, even when running at a reduced capability is still superior to most other fighters, but GAO found none of the three variants were mission capable, meaning they are safe to fly and able to fly at least one tasked mission, more than 68 percent of the time in fiscal 2021. The minimum performance target for the F-35A is 80 percent and 75 percent for the other two variants.
Diana Maurer, director of the Defense Capabilities and Management Team at GAO was on hand to respond, but her sober recitation of what the report already laid out was eclipsed by representatives who seem to have had enough.

Highlights from the hearing follow the full video.

Bright, shiny airplanes
“I will not tolerate it any longer,” Garamendi said. “I've been watching the F-35 for a decade and it has not been solved. It has not gotten the attention necessary to sustain this 1.7 trillion dollar platform. It has not occurred, plain and simple. We're going to go off and buy new bright shiny airplanes and they're going to be flying probably well for a few months and then they're going to wind up with a problem.”
What the hell, Pratt?

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/bl...nt-hearing

[ABNARTY]

I know cutting edge tech is troublesome. New shiny airplanes have always had problems like that. 

However, there is a window in which that is to be expected. Once past that window? Maybe it's the design itself. Maybe the materials. Maybe it is something with the contractors. Maybe the gee-whiz magic was oversold. 

An FMC rate of 9.5%??? Um....

[Brotherman]

I know cutting edge tech is troublesome. New shiny airplanes have always had problems like that. 

However, there is a window in which that is to be expected. Once past that window? Maybe it's the design itself. Maybe the materials. Maybe it is something with the contractors. Maybe the gee-whiz magic was oversold. 

An FMC rate of 9.5%??? Um....

Maybe instead of the people that work on them things shouldn’t have spent so much time in woke training and touchy feely it’s ok to be gay group circles around general woke and lieutenant fucksyourbutt