![\"USAF-aircraft-maintenance\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/USAF-aircraft-maintenance-1751405918.3066.jpg?resize=300%2C225&ssl=1\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Anyone follow the recent John Deere controversy, in which Big Green\/Yellow is supposed to allow folks to fix their own equipment? Buy a Deere, have a problem – and find out it is a factory-only repair, regardless of whether you could make said repair blindfolded and suspended upside down.\u00a0 This one seems to be going against\u00a0 JD, and farmers all over the country were happy about it. (In actual practice… well, the jury still seems to be out.)<\/p>\n
Thankfully our military doesn’t labor under that kind of burden, right? There’s always “that guy” who can fix anything<\/em>? Maybe a warrant officer who actually puts down his coffee?\u00a0 Actually…wrong.<\/p>\n The U.S. military often can\u2019t fix parts of jets, ships, infantry fighting vehicles, and other equipment because they are not allowed to under the contracts the Pentagon signs with manufacturers. Instead, only the manufacturer can fix the equipment, which is a problem in a combat zone or out on a far-flung training exercise.<\/p>\n The Navy pays millions to fly contractors out to sea and make repairs that sailors aboard those very ships could make themselves. \u201cRight to repair\u201d is the catch-all term for the effort to give service members more authority to fix the equipment they rely on, but a bipartisan effort in Congress to do that fell short last year.<\/p>\n Troops use technical data to diagnose and fix a broken part, or to make a replacement using a 3-D printer, Computer Numerical Control (CNC) machine, or similar device. But military equipment manufacturers tend to guard that data, saying it falls under the intellectual property they invested in developing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n You would think that with billion dollar contracts, for those billions we should get all the info needed to fix ’em. You would think – but we don’t.<\/p>\n Up until the early 1990s, the Pentagon routinely bought complete technical data packages that let troops and military civilians repair equipment or bid the work out to other contractors at competitive prices.<\/p>\n That began to change during President Bill Clinton\u2019s administration, which encouraged the defense industry to consolidate, shrinking from 51 aerospace and defense prime contractors in the early 1990s to just five today.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Anyone want to bet that some very deep-pocketed Clintonistas didn’t get very much richer and deeper pocketed? Me, neither.<\/p>\n The F-35 is one example of the ripple effects of these policies. Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps maintainers said the lack of technical data prevents them from making routine repairs to many F-35 components, according to a 2023 Government Accountability Office report.\u00a0Task and Purpose<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n We can’t fix our front-line fighter without a consultant? What the actual …?<\/p>\n There is a saying that “politics make strange bedfellows” (or, in the case of some deceased politicians whose spouses took over their political positions, bedfellows make strange politics.)\u00a0 In this case, a lot of us may be shocked at who is on our side:<\/p>\n Perhaps the most prominent effort to compel defense contractors to make military equipment more repairable is the Servicemember Right-to-Repair Act<\/em> of 2024, introduced in Congress by Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez. The Army has also been working with lawmakers to refine right-to-repair provisions in upcoming defense bills.<\/p>\n