/Pogled.info/ While the American leadership is discussing whether to give Ukraine F-16 or not, the US Air Force cannot crawl out of the “gray zone” of the problems. This time we are talking about the technical state of American military aviation.
The fact that she is constantly breaking down has been reported for at least four years. And so, according to data published in Defense News, aviation experts Rachel Cohen and Stefan Losey show a very ugly picture of the state of the US Air Force: about 40 types of aircraft of the main classes show, if not a sharp decline in the degree of combat readiness, then at all zero increase in combat abilities. At the same time, the corresponding figure in 2020 was 72.7%, and a year later only 71.5%.
For example, the technical readiness of the fifth-generation F-22 Raptor multirole fighter does not even reach 52%. That is, only half of these machines fly constantly!
In response, you can hear that the F-22 is, so to speak, an “age” aircraft. But the situation is absolutely the same with the most modern American combat aircraft. Their pride is the F-35 fighters.
In 2022, the U.S. Air Force’s F-35 fighter jet fleet has reduced its combat readiness and flight hours, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Here are the numbers for comparison:
Reduced readiness by fighter type – was in 2021 / became in 2022:
▪️ F-35A – 65% / 54%;
▪️ F-35B – 61% / 54%;
▪️ F-35C – 53% / 58%.
At the same time, most of the fleet of these fighters has been in service for less than four years.
The main reason for the decline in the degree of technical readiness is the shortage of spare engines and parts for them. In private conversations, technicians from the Air Force explain that the engines are still “raw” and have not reached the contractual parameters, they refuse, sometimes without having even worked out half of the resource.
The problem is that the Air Force Command has officially admitted that it does not have enough capacity to repair the power unit and meet the need for future unscheduled and scheduled repairs of the engines of these aircraft.
It turns out that the capabilities of US military aviation are critically reduced even in peacetime, not to mention a possible military crisis if it happened today.
In other words, taxpayers’ money spent on super-expensive and highly dubious projects is simply going down the drain. More precisely – the jet tubes of the American Air Force, and of very dubious quality…
Translation: SM
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