The disappearance earlier this week of a Marine Corps F-35B stealth fighter over South Carolina after the pilot ejected from it—the wreckage was finally located 24 hours later some 60 miles away from where he ejected—has put an unwelcome spotlight on the F-35’s continuing problems. (F-35s cost approximately $100 million/plane.) The Government Accountability Office issued a report yesterday that found that out of more than 1,000 fielded, only about 55% of the F-35 fleet are available for missions on any given day. It cited delays in “setting up military service depots—facilities to complete the most complex repairs,” “inadequate equipment to keep aircraft operational” and “maintenance and supply delays affecting aircraft readiness,” reported the New York Post.
In other words, the military services have failed to provide the logistics base necessary to support the F-35, an aircraft already complicated by its stealth features, and 8 million lines of computer code.
