Not pretty:
Air Force aircraft readiness plunges to new low, alarming chief
As budget cuts loom, U.S. Air Force leaders lament a fleet in which all aircraft types don't pass muster.www.militarytimes.com
In the article, Ms Penney misses the mark when she says older equipment and lack of upgrades are the big problem. What are our most underperforming airframes and systems? The NEW stuff! F-35, KC-46, LCS ship, etc. There’s so much bloat and poor contracting and acquisition measures, that manufacturers have no quality control, and aren’t held accountable for poor performance and garbage, overpriced programs that do not deliver what they are supposed to, nor are even really able to perform in most cases.
Want to look at a section of government that needs its rampant fraud, waste, and abuse of funds investigated and curtailed, look right at the DOD. The elephant in the room. Not just the military side, but the contracting side. The entirely of the Military Industrial Complex. They are why we are getting garbage for the money we pay as taxpayers. Systems we purchase that don’t work. And no one is held accountable, no one is fired; instead people get promoted and more $$ are thrown into the fire..
The new KC-46 has barely half the fleet that can even perform the air refueling mission, what’s supposed to be its bread and butter, while the just retired KC-10 fleet had a nearly 90% full mission capable rate, sustained, and the best safety record in the USAF. If there’s a worry that budget cuts are coming for DOD, it’s quite possible that that is what they earned for themselves.
if only Lemon laws for cars, applied to defense systems also.
