The Air Force's mission capable rates declined again in fiscal 2024, indicating the service has work to do to adequately fund spares and maintenance. The F-22 fighter and B-1 bomber both were available less than half the time.
The F-35A mission capable rate for fiscal 2023 was 51.9 percent, or just over half the time, the Air Force reported. Officials attributed parts availability as the culprit, but the fighter’s MC rate has been declining since it peaked in 2020, and the Air Force ...
Mission capable rates across most Air Force fleets declined in fiscal 2023, continuing a broad downward trend, according to information provided by the service. Readiness fell predictably in high-demand, hard-used assets and some systems approaching retirement, but the availability of some vintage aircraft continues to ...
They were manufactured in the early 1960s and are deployed almost constantly around the world. But the Air Force's fleet of RC-135 intelligence and reconnaissance aircraft enjoy some of the highest mission capable rates in U.S. military aviation. How the Air Force manages it is ...
The Heritage Foundation ranked both the Air Force and the Space Force as “weak” in its 2022 Index of U.S. Military Strength released Oct. 20, citing issues ranging from low readiness and misaligned investment in fourth-generation platforms to insufficient space domain awareness and offensive space ...
Air Education and Training Command's fixed-wing trainer aircraft saw a 17 percent improvement in their mission capable rates in fiscal 2020 over the previous year, pushed by investments in facilities, proactive parts replacement, and maintenance reorganzation, the command reported.
The Air Force's fighter fleet generally saw an uptick in mission capable rates in fiscal 2020. The most dramatic improvement was the F-35's. Its rate jumped from 61.6 percent in fiscal 2019 to just over 76 percent in fiscal 2020. The F-15D's and E's MC ...
Air Force Global Strike Command on April 20 ordered a safety stand-down of its B-1B Lancer fleet to inspect fuel system problems following an April 8 ground emergency. After the emergency at Ellsworth Air Force Base, S.D., inspectors found a “discrepancy” with the B-1’s Augmenter ...
The vast majority of Defense Department aircraft, including all of the military’s most advanced fleets, fell short of their mission readiness goals over the past decade, according to a recent Government Accountability Office report. Only three of 46 different types of aircraft that the GAO ...
Bigger fleets of aircraft are easier and less costly per aircraft to manage than small ones, but that may change as the Air Force moves toward the new Digital Century Series, Air Force Materiel Command chief Gen. Arnold W. Bunch Jr. said July 1. The ...
A pair of Tennessee Air National Guardsmen are collaborating with the Warner Robins Logistics Complex and the augmented reality/virtual reality development studio Moth+Flame—with support from ARCWERX—to create a virtual-reality simulator to help maintainers practice running USAF aircraft engines while saving money, increasing aircraft availability, and ...
The Air Force’s fleet in fiscal 2019 maintained an overall mission capable rate of 70.27 percent, a slight increase from the previous year. Although some key combat aircraft, such as the fifth-generation F-22 Raptor, which hovers just over 50 percent, sustained low capability rates, service ...