What’s Israel doing right?
We have talked before about the availability of flying F-35s in the US inventory. Here is a study from the Congressional Budget Office giving the raw numbers on F-35s. Cutting to the chase, our average availability is around 40-50% percent, so figure over 50% of the fleet is unavailable for missions at any point in time. They are quick to point out that we have the oldest F-35 fleet around, some of the planes ten whole years old.
In a recent report, CBO analyzed how the availability and use of other DoD aircraft have evolved as those aircraft have aged.4 Compared with those aircraft, DoD’s F-35 fleet is very new: 87 of the aircraft began operation during fiscal year 2022, and as of September 2022, more than half of the 532 F-35s in DoD’s possession had operated for less than four full years. Only 44 aircraft were in their 10th or later year of operation. CBO
Guess that shows what happens when you use them so heavily, right? Try less than 250 Hours – per YEAR – for the most heavily used. Call it less than an hour a day.
U.S. military’s concerns over sustaining its F-35 Joint Strike Fighters through the so-called ‘just-in-time’ logistics model that underpins the program, especially during a time of war, have risen dramatically as we noted in April. Overall, U.S. F-35s still struggle in terms of readiness, with about 55 percent of F-35s operated by the Air Force, Marines and Navy able to perform at least one of their assigned missions as of March, a report that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) also released on Tuesday states.
The news out of Israel stands in contrast to those issues. It highlights enhanced U.S. support, but also Israel’s initiative to create its own sustainment and aircraft improvement system that has enabled it to avoid problems experienced by the American military.
Seems the Israelis have much higher readiness rates and faster turn-around times than we do. C’mon, it’s our damn plane! Per Lt. Gen. Michael Schmidt, the program manager:
”Their mission-capable rates are high. Their full mission capable rates are high.”
One reason for the IAF’s success with the Adirs is that the U.S. government has surged spare parts and other support capacity to Israel, U.S. Rep. Rob Wittman (R-VA), Chairman of the Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee, said in his opening remarks.
“The F-35 joint program office has moved at a breakneck speed to support our closest partner and ally in the Middle East, Israel. They’ve done this by accelerating F-35 weapons capabilities and increasing spare parts supply rates in their fight against the atrocities committed by Hamas,” he said.
William LaPlante, Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, offered similar sentiments.
“Notably in Israel, we see surging sustainment support in operations that maximizes fleet readiness with 35 of 39 Israeli Air Force F-35A aircraft and exceeds expectations in combat,” he said in his written statement. The War Zone
So, we use a Just-In-Time supply chain and expect parts to be ready as they are needed. Heck, we expect procuring parts to happen simultaneously with development of the systems they are made for:
Block 4 upgrades — intended to allow the F-35 to carry more weapons, better recognize targets, and improve its electronic warfare capabilities, among other features — are also facing serious concurrency problems, Schmidt said in written testimony. Concurrency occurs when a system moves through development and into procurement at the same time, which makes it harder to fix problems discovered in testing. Defense News
Sounds like we are counting on a best-case scenario all the time…and having 50% readiness rates on planes less than a decade old. The Israelis are running far higher rates but are emphasizing doing maintenance and keeping spares in stock. Looks to me like they just might have a better way to fight a war, hmm?
Category: "Your Tax Dollars At Work", Air Force, Marines, Navy, None
Definitely not an expert, but their missions probably take far less flight time than do ours. Seems like even if they take off and land the same amount, less engine hours means less failures if you are tracking mean time between failures.
Total cycles, takeoff and landing, take as much or more toll than total flying hours. The answer is Thierry leaders are focused on the mission not DEI.
agreed, that’s why I am asking about mean time between failures. At its simplest, if the MTBF was 60 min and you fly 30-min sorties, you get two. If you are flying 90 min sorties, you need two aircraft. What’s the mean time between failures for F35 engines? Again, not an expert; my frame of reference is AGT1500 turbines in an Abrams….
I could be mistaken, last time I checked Hamas did not have any fighter jets. So if all they have to do is drop bombs and avoid ADA, how bad could it be? The real shooting war against China with Gen 5 fighters might have a different result.
Certainly seems like a validation of the necessity to keep spares on hand, and not “just not in time”!
Remember during the first Gulf War (Desert Shield/Desert Storm) when the 101st Airborne Division, usually with 70% more or less aircraft fully mission capable, soared to 98% and even 100% mission readiness? Why?
Because the crew members didn’t work “9 to 5” or take off weekends and holidays. They — and in WWII — worked and literally sleep next to their aircraft and would not leave until the aircraft was ready for flight.
I suspect the Israeli’s are doing the same.
“What’s Israel doing right?”
Soft landings?
Killing the hostages that they are supposed to rescue?
Are there no women, children or hostages being killed in Ukraine/Russia war? Or are they not being reported on as much as that mean ol IDF killings.
Unfortunately, mistakes get made.
I think it is simply the difference between a peacetime readiness philosophy vs a combat theater situation. Our folks are stuck in peacetime dealing with a “just in time” support methodology and the Israelis are in a war time push support frame of mind where down aircraft are not supporting the mission.
In addition, a “just in time” support basis also equals a huge single point mission failure problem.
Whining about “expensive warehousing costs” loses out to having a large stock of sh*t ready for use when rounds start flying.
As already pointed out by some here and in other discussions of the F-35 in the forum, there is a difference between normal ops and surge (war) ops. As an old F-16 Viper fixer I remember we’d “code out” a plane for routine mx with lots of minor stuff (tire tread, brake pads, hydraulic leaks, etc.) that would make it miss one, maybe two (if it was an all day fix) missions. That’s why we always had a spare jet (or two) for the day’s lines and safety first of course. Everyone here knows that…
Surging for real (war-exercise or inspection) – we flew the hell out of those jets, worked the flight crews, mx and ammo teams to their limits. Loggies had us a ton of spare parts and even the engine shop had us full up with a couple spare engines if needed.
The problems with the F-35, as has been mentioned before, is it’s a much more complex toy plus doing development efforts (software) while deploying it for real world work. It would be like taking my F-16s flight computer out for real world work without the correct software to use all the hard points or pull certain G-loads with certain configurations. That’s just stupid…
Oh and add in a loggie parts system that doesn’t work correctly – thanks Lockheed (dumba$$) Martin!
Just in time logistics might work for some industries but it don’t work for military jets in my experience.
I’m praying that future leaders in the “MIC” see all these mistakes from the F-35 development and follow the lessons learned to improve their program management.
“Seems the Israelis have much higher readiness rates and faster turn-around times than we do.” When the entire Muslim world wants to erase your very existence, your sense of urgency to be ready tends to remain very high.
“So, we use a Just-In-Time supply chain and expect parts to be ready as they are needed.” That might work well in a business where supply failure only results in decreased shareholder profits. Not so well in military operations where success is measured in lives.
What’s Israel doing right?
Kicking Hamas’ asses, that’s what.
I’ll be cynical – they pay more for their F-35s than we do, and thus get prioritized access to parts and expertise. This notion that you need an F-35 to bomb Gaza is laughable; they’ve got more F-15s and F-16s than F-35s, and surely those are up for that role.
Sure, given their geopolitical position, their readiness level is always high. But if this comes down to maintenance dependent on parts.. it’s because they get those parts before we do. Because they pay more.
Quite happy to be proven wrong, but their third fleet of 25 jets cost $3B, averaging >100M a piece, and we’re at ~80M a piece, no?
There’s some stereotypical/ethnic/politically incorrect humor lurking in that comment.
So… what you’re saying is… the Israelis are better businessmen than we are?
My apologies in advance for any offense.
I see what jew did there. 😉
Well played, my friend!
“Concurrency” Order before proven.
I refer everyone to the history books and the Curtiss SB2C Helldiver. It was ordered into production before the prototype had even flown because the Navy wanted the SBD Dauntless replaced.
What resulted was constant redesign to fix problems. For the -1 Helldiver there were so many fixes, 800 according to one source, a separate modification line had to be set up just to avoid interrupting production.
Meanwhile carriers kept their Slow But Deadly Dauntless dive bombers. The last carrier based SBDs flew their last combat missions at the Marianna’s Turkey Shoot in 1944 and suffered fewer losses than their replacement the Helldiver.
In fact by the time the SB2C entered widespread fleet service in 1944, the mission of dive bomber was fast becoming obsolete as Avengers, Hellcats, and Corsairs took up the role that would be called Attack after the war.
Just in time supply chain makes sense when one uses common off the shelf items; however, mil-specs are the opposite of common off the shelf items. I agree that combat arms requires mil-specs but combat support? The aircraft servicing vehicles, AGE & MHE equipment, emergency response vehicles, etc used in the military are often different than those which are used by industry.
I once had a CMSgt tell me I couldn’t get the equipment I needed to complete the mission. The Chief agreed the equipment I wanted was off the shelf and available locally. His argument was the equipment I wanted wasn’t mil-spec’d and needed to be certified for use in the desert and the Arctic. I pointed out the equipment was never going to be used in the desert nor the Arctic. The mil-spec’d equipment had a lead-time of 18 months ARO.
I can’t spell clairvoyant the same way three times in a row; however, I doesn’t take a seer to see what could happen. If the government wants just in time supplies, it needs to use what’s in common use.
It has been 20 years since I read Clancy’s original novels.
2023-2024 starting to look like the Iranian “hyenas circling lion to drive it off” bit.
‘-Mail, I don’t think you’d have to go back and re-read some of that stuff. It’s happening, for real, in real-time, now.
Prepare
Not completely off-topic, semi-relevant, absolutely entertaining:
https://twitchy.com/samj/2023/12/19/yemen-tells-america-to-bring-it-on-with-top-gun-video-theres-just-one-hilarious-problem-watch-n2390962
There are still F5/T38 trainers air worthy?
Apparently, at least one!
I am not being, or trying to be condescending! BUT, What is Israel doing right? = Killing bad guys!