Pilots without mechanics in any aviation, civil or military, would just be pretty boys with leather jackets and dodgy sunglasses, it’s a saying that speaks the true truth!
Because by the time a military pilot goes to put on his flight suit, the plane is prepared by the mechanics for flight. Here is the side hidden and never shown by popularization movies like Top Gun.
Down there at the “greasy” as aviation mechanics of any kind are nicknamed, so much and so much happens. Because an airplane manufacturer first builds the airplane with the technicians and then gets the pilots to fly it!
Military technicians have the role of ensuring the operability of their fleets by following strict procedures and protocols, and they have clear targets to reach, well-established targets.
Regarding this topic, the journalists from the prestigious Aviation Week presented an analysis, to say the least, of the activity of maintaining the operability of American military aviation.
Thus they appeared as one
among the latest surveillance and analysis reports on US military aviation activity, it is found that US tactical combat air fleets have largely fallen short of their target mission success rates set in recent years.
This situation has been reached despite the high levels of expenses incurred to maintain all these aircraft at the maximum level of operability.
It is specified in this report that the US Government Accountability Office (GAO), found and publicly communicated the fact that the majority of aircraft in the US Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps did not meet the training objectives during the period 2018-2023, although collectively, the services spent a total of $57.2 billion in operating and maintenance expenses for these fleets.
In addition to that, the GAO absolutely unbelievably presents the case of the Pentagon’s new fleet of fifth-generation fighter jets, the famous F-35s, which has not met any of its mission capability goals over the course of six years.
This F-35 fleet includes the Air Force’s A variant along with the Navy’s C variant.
That analysis also shows that in the same period analyzed, 2018-2023, the fleets of F-18 Super Hornet and Growler aircraft of the Navy also did not reach the targets established in this chapter.
Also, during the period in question, even the planes belonging to the US Marine Corps, from the F-35 B, F18 Super Hornets and AV-6B Harriers, did not reach the set targets, the GAO report states.
It is also written in the said report that:
“Tactical aircraft mission capability rates were generally not achieved, negatively impacting the achievement of State Department of Defense objectives over the years.”
GAO officials attribute this extremely negative situation with a direct effect on presidential campaigns to numerous interrelated and complex factors such as: aging aircraft, maintenance challenges and supply issues.”
In FY 2023, the Air Force reported the following operating capability rates of 33% for the F-15C, 54.6% for the F-15D, 54.7% for the F-15E, 85.1% for the F-15EX, 69.3% for the F-16C, 51.9% for the F-22 and 51.9% for the F-35, according to statistics obtained by Aviation Week (data for the Navy and Marine Corps not available).
However, we believe that here the list should be supplemented with the acute lack of qualified personnel, the increase in personnel costs, the delays of suppliers, the strikes of the civilian personnel of the military giants.
In this sense, the situation of the Boeing company about to break as a result of the situation of high production costs in relation to the low prices imposed by the Department of Defense shows an increasing fragility of the way of thinking and realizing the global system of keeping up to date the operability of these military aircraft.
The conclusions that you will draw yourself following the above presented have the role of creating a cold image for you and beyond the political canvas of our days well painted with the typical tools of hybrid warfare.
Cezar Osicdanu
Source: www.cotidianul.ro
