[HN Gopher] Air Force Confirms Its F-35As Were Mission Capable A...
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       Air Force Confirms Its F-35As Were Mission Capable About Half the
       Time in 2023
        
       Author : belter
       Score  : 6 points
       Date   : 2024-06-29 21:34 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.airandspaceforces.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.airandspaceforces.com)
        
       | talldayo wrote:
       | That's pretty much on-par for a stealth platform. B2 and F-22
       | also have notoriously poor combat readiness statistics, even with
       | their relatively old supply chains. Surprising nobody, sourcing
       | and refurbishing radar-absorbent material is a time consuming
       | process that isn't easily accelerated. News at 11.
        
         | ungreased0675 wrote:
         | The article says spare parts are the issue, not the paint job.
         | That's kinda weird for a plane with a hot production line, no?
        
           | eightysixfour wrote:
           | Not when they're selling like hot cakes. Too busy making new
           | ones instead of spare parts.
        
           | _DeadFred_ wrote:
           | Aerospace supply chains have been treated as jobs and/or
           | kickbacks programs versus practical/product need. The
           | aircraft with parts made in every congressmen's
           | constituencies and our partner allies versus the aircraft
           | with a sane supply chain designed to best serve the aircraft
           | needs. So now you are dependant on hundreds of small
           | suppliers/subcontractors. Small businesses can't exactly
           | scale up and down like Lockheed could, especially when you
           | consider the large investment in say and addition upright
           | mill that needs a lot more demand than a few extra spares
           | being made to justify.
           | 
           | In software the saying I've heard/used is 'everything can't
           | be everything'. You can have a jobs program. You can have
           | kickbacks to local economies that aren't required to make
           | financial/availability sense. You can have a
           | reactive/responsive supply chain. Or you can have an
           | efficient least expensive supply chain.
        
         | CapitalistCartr wrote:
         | When I wss in USAF, I deeply disliked the radar-absorbent
         | material. The maintenance sucked. Every repair was a tricky,
         | tedious process, that often had to be done twice. OTOH, spare
         | parts were _never_ a problem. But that was during the Cold War.
        
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       (page generated 2024-06-29 23:01 UTC)