F-35 at $100 Million only 55% Flight Availability

Written by Chriss W. Street

The $100 million F/A-35 single-engine manned fighter that is now the main US Air Force, Navy and Marine Corp, and Army,has been designated an “assigned mission procurement failure” by the Government Accountability Office for being available to fly only 55 percent of the time, versus its planned 85 percent to 90 percent availability standard.  

The US military for the last two decades, has introduced a series of extraordinarily expensive and supposedly highly capable stealth aircraft systems.  The most successful on a volume basis has been the so-called “Fifth Generation” Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter that moved into full production mode in Mach 2024, with US contracts to build 2,470 variously configured fighters for the US Air Force, Navy and Marines, and Army missions.

The F-35 is the first deployed version example of the US militaries’ Adaptive Engine Transition Program (AETP) that by lengthening the fuselage would allow its cranked kite wingpromised to provide more thrust than both engines on an F-18 Hornet, achieve greater fuel efficiency, and carry a larger ordinance payloads.  

Although the F-35 sacrificed some of the top speed and maneuverability capabilities of the F-18, the purpose-built long range strike and drone control platform encouraged American allies to begin standardizing their fighter fleets with about 1,000 F-35s orders placed by the United Kingdom, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Australia, Canada, Norway, Denmark, Singapore,Turkey, Belgium, Finland, Germany, Japan, Poland, South Korea, Switzerland, Czech Republic and Romania.

But a GAO report in 2021 found that 47 of the 49 fielded US aircraft systems were not meeting the US Military mission capable availability rates including: Air Force averaging 65.4% versus 75% standard; Navy averaging 43% versus 65% standard; and Army averaging 68% versus 85% standard.  

The report represented a direct attack on the leadership competence of the American military-industrial-complex and their exalted National Industrial Policy Initiative planning.  The GAO found the main reasons for the all four military flunking readiness standards, besides normal aging aircraft, was the failure of program planners to design and adequately fund ongoing sustainment costs, maintenance challenges, and supply support issues.

The GAO earlier in March of this year issued another scathing report that found expected annual costs cost to maintain each of the planned 2,470 F-35s through 2088, had increased from $4.1 million to $6.8 million per year. The report revealed numerous design deficiencies, but the most startling was admission that the F-35's engine cooling system is “overtasked.”  GAO stated F-35 mission availability now stood at 55%, almost 60% below the 85-90% contract standard.   

The GAO report specifically revealed that Lockheed Martin has known since 2008 that cooling requires more “bleed air” than anticipated, because the “jet relies on a power and thermal management system that pulls air from the engine to cool its radar and other electronic systems.”  

The only good news from the F-35 performance failure and costdebacle is delaying the roll-out of the so-called Sixth-Generationfighter named the “Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) crewed fighter program.  With an expected to cost $300 million,Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall has stated that the NGAD is under “deep review” to pursue field a far less expensive aircraft.