Only five of 49 US warplane types mission-ready to fly: Report

Only five of the 49 types US war planes met mission readiness targets for five or more years in the span between fiscal years of 2011 and 2021, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has unveiled.

The congressional spending watchdog indicated in a comprehensive 352-page report released this week that issues such as aircraft age, maintenance problems and spare parts availability seriously hampered readiness levels – measured by fleet aircraft ability to fly and perform at least a single mission, Sputnik News reported Saturday.

Only the Air Force’s UH-1N, a top-of-the-line helicopter originally produced in the 1970s, was deemed mission capable throughout the eleven-year period studied, according to the report.

The US Navy’s EP-3E anti-submarine reconnaissance turboprop aircraft was rated as the second best performer, it added, meeting the annual mission capability goals for seven of eleven years.

The Air Force’s stealthy B-2 bomber and RC-135S-W command and control aircraft got a score of six years, with the Navy’s E-6B C&C plane rounding out the top five, deemed mission ready for five of 11 years.

The remaining 44 war planes and helicopters in the list scored three or lower, with a whopping 26 military aircraft types failing to meet mission capability requirements for even a single year, the report further emphasized.

Among these were the Marine Corps’ much-boasted F-35B strike jetfighter, Air Force F-16s, F-22s and Marine KC-130J tankers, Air Force C-17 cargo haulers, Navy E-C2 C&C aircraft, and 10 different Army, Navy and Marine Corps choppers, including the CV-22 Osprey.

The Navy’s sleek F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet multirole jet -- depicted in this year’s critically-acclaimed Hollywood movie, Top Gun: Maverick -- was deemed unready to fly for all 11 years.

The report further calculated that during the FY-2011-2021 timeframe, the only branch of the military to improve its mission capability rate was the Army, with the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps all suffering a major decline in combat readiness. In FY 2021, only two of the 49 studied war planes met the mission-capability criteria.

The GAO also highlighted to a broad range of factors impacting readiness levels -- from delays in fleet upgrades and forced extensions of service life to unexpected breakdowns requiring costly repairs and new parts, shortages of said components, delays in their delivery, and even the loss of parts makers entirely.

Additionally, the congressional watchdog cited a lack of depot maintenance capability, a shortage of trained maintenance personnel, and problems with access to the necessary technical data to make repairs possible.

According to the GAO, Army and Air Force operating and support costs have also declined by a whopping 18 and 54 percent, respectively, over the decade under examination, while those of the Navy and Marine Corps climbed by 39 and 75 percent, respectively, over the same period.

Total operating and support costs reached $54 billion in 2020, with overall average maintenance costs increasing, aircraft inventories increasing by 14.8 percent, but total flight hours dropping by over 20 percent.

The findings come despite allocating more than $800 billion of US taxpayer money to the US military in 2021, and notwithstanding the Pentagon’s heavy reliance on the Air Force to play the key role in the majority of its operations across the globe, including the bombing of multiple countries.

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