Defense Secretary Jim Mattis’ directive to the military services to bring at least 80 percent of aviation fleet to “mission-capable” status by the end of next year will be difficult to achieve, the Government Accountability Office told Congress Wednesday.
In testimony before a joint session of two Senate Armed Services subcommittees, John Pendleton, the GAO’s director of defense capabilities and management, cited the low availability rate of the military’s newest stealthy fighter, the F-35 as an example of how ambitious that goal is.
“When we looked at the F-35 last year, it had a 15 percent fully mission-capable rate,” Pendleton testified.
The Navy and Marine Corps have had trouble keeping older F-18 Hornets flying while waiting for more F-35s to join the fleet. But Pendleton said the F-35 is proving to be even harder to maintain.
“Early indications incorporating them into the fleet is that we are seeing some challenges there as well,” he testified. “It took months, sometimes six months or more to get parts repaired and back out to the fleet.”
He said in the “rush to field” the F-35, “additional attention has to be paid to sustaining the F-35.”
As for the 80 percent goal, “this will be difficult to achieve in my assessment,” Pendleton said.
Asked by Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, if it was realistic for Mattis to order 80 percent mission capable rate to be achieved in 12 months, Navy Secretary Richard Spencer said, “It is a stretch goal, senator, but it is a stretch goal we will take.”
Spencer said the Navy has tapped expertise in the private sectors to improve the time it takes to repair planes and get them back in the air.
“Corporate America is bending over backwards to help us,” he testified.
“We’ve hired a fellow who ran Southwest Airlines maintenance and in a matter of eight weeks … we have increased throughput by 40 percent,” Spencer said, referring to at least one maintenance depot slated for repair of F-18 Super Hornets.
Still the Navy has a way to go.
The latest readiness rates show that only 49 percent of the Navy’s Super Hornets are mission-capable.
And of the seven types of military aircraft surveyed by the GAO, none met the 80 percent goal.
