The reports on the F-35's woes keep getting worse....F-35B’s fully mission capable rate fell from 23 percent in October 2017 to 12.9 percent in June 2018...

via National Interest.

The most important measure of an aircraft’s readiness for combat is the “fully mission capable” rate. This is the percentage of aircraft on hand that have fully functional, non-degraded vehicle systems (flight controls and engine), electronic mission systems (radar, electronic warfare systems, computers, etc.), and weapons employment capabilities—a particularly important measure for the F-35. The 2017 DOT&E report showed a 26 percent fully mission capable rate across the entire F-35 fleet. Because the 2018 report makes no mention of this rate, it is impossible to know what the 2018 rate was.


The Navy document POGO obtained shows that the problem persists : the Marines’ F-35B and the Navy’s F-35C variants posted even worse figures in 2018 than in the previous year. The F-35B’s fully mission capable rate fell from 23 percent in October 2017 to 12.9 percent in June 2018, while the F-35C plummeted from 12 percent in October 2016 to 0 percent in December 2017, then remained in the single digits through 2018.


Based on the Navy and Marine variants’ dismally low fully mission capable rates, and on how little appears to have improved across the program since 2017, the fully mission capable rate for the full fleet is likely far below the 80 percent target rate for the program set by former Secretary of Defense James Mattis.


In response to POGO’s questions about the Navy’s fully mission capable rates, the Joint Program Office highlighted the entire F-35 fleet’s higher “mission capable” rate, a less rigorous—and less useful—measure showing how often the aircraft can perform at least one of its assigned tasks. The office also identified the lack of spare parts as the biggest factor impacting availability.


To tell how many planes can actually get to the fight requires a second measure, the sortie generation rate: that is, how many flights per day each fighter in the fleet completes. The 2018 DOT&E report makes no mention of it.


The fleet-wide sortie rates for the three F-35 variants POGO calculated from the 2017 report were extremely low, averaging between 0.3 and 0.4 sorties per day. During Operation Desert Storm, frontline combat aircraft including the F-15 and F-16 flew an average of at least one sortie per day , and the A-10 fleet averaged at least 1.4 sorties per day. Even under the pressure of recent Middle East combat deployment , the F-35’s rates have not improved. According to statements from the squadron commander, 6 F-35Bs onboard the USS Essex flew over 100 sorties in 50-plus days in the Middle East. In other words, each F-35B flew a third of a sortie per day—meaning they flew an average of once every three days—in sustained combat.

Story here. 

There ain't enough lipstick in the world to make this pig look beautiful.

I can't wait for Gar9, Ogden, Spudman, Jason, OSVNO (think that's right) and others to tell me how this article is wrong too.

One thing truly upsets me though.  A Marine Corps Officer went out and stated that the F-35B dropped more bombs than the Harrier would have on the same type deployment.  I won't say he lied but I do think he twisted the facts so hard that it would take a battalion of chiropractors to straighten things out.

All jokes aside.

If the Pentagon has sunk to the level of lying to protect a program then the US military is in worse trouble than I thought (and make no mistake, I believe they have sunk just that low...the vain hope of things turning around led them down this rabbit hole...I need that quote from Don about optimism).

They need the support of the citizens. 

If people like me get the idea that they're just another group of lying politicians in uniform then they're truly lost. 

If they lose the trust of the citizenry then they have no hope.

The F-35 isn't worth it.

Someone has to do the adult thing in the Pentagon and state clearly that there will be no more lies, no more half truths, no more deception. They must start being actual and factual.