The logistics system designed to keep the F-35 fleet flying often doesn’t, with more than a fifth of grounded planes sitting idle waiting for spare parts. The result is fewer airplanes available for training—and increasingly, combat—as the system struggles to keep an ever-growing number of jets flying.

Aviation Week & Space Technology reports that parts shortages and bureaucracy are hampering efforts to keep the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter in the air. In particular,it includes an anecdote about an Air Force major whose helmet had a broken plastic clip, a problem that would have grounded him for two weeks as he waited for a replacement. It was only when the issue was escalated to the Joint Program Office, which runs the F-35 program, that rules were bent to fix the problem.

The single anecdote speaks volumes about the F-35 program’s logistics system. The program is designed to centralize the repair and spare parts program as much as possible, to increase efficiency and reduce costs. Instead of every F-35 base stocking plastic clips, helmets, or even engines, a centralized, global computer system would keep track of all working and spare F-35 parts worldwide, sending them to bases worldwide in a timely manner as needed. Repairs are done at a handful of depots to minimize costs and maximize efficiency.

On paper that sounds like a great idea, no doubt inspired by the just-in-time nature of companies such as Amazon and UPS. Together, the two companies can ship millions of types of goods globally from a handful of distribution centers, overnight on a consumer’s whim, often for completely trivial reasons. In practice, the F-35 program needs two weeks to ship a plastic helmet clip to someone who needs it more urgently than the typical Amazon Prime customers needs their latest impulse buy.

U.S. Air Force photo/Airman 1st Class Caleb Worpel

According to AW&ST, the parts shortage is so severe that at Eglin Air Force Base, “maintainers are constantly battling for parts.” Twenty two percent of the F-35s grounded globally are unable to fly because they are waiting on parts. The F-35’s only forward-deployed until, Marine Corps F-35Bs regularly based in Japan, has a readiness level just over fifty percent. In October 2017, the average time to repair a part was 172 days, twice the F-35 program’s goal.

The story mirrors a General Accounting Office report in 2017 but paints a more vivid picture. In 2017 the GAO in large part pinned the problem on the Air Force and Navy not providing enough funding to build out six centralized repair depots with some needed capabilities not coming online until 2022. Another problem: the F-35 program was simply not buying enough spare parts.

The government, unlike Amazon, operates from a fairly fixed federal budget, and experiences an inventory loss on every spare part used. Furthermore, the F-35’s logistics program, with its monopoly on providing to pilots, is seemingly unconcerned with "customer service," versus enforcing bureaucratic rules about switching plastic clips from helmet to helmet in the field.

The services are trying to fix the situation, establishing an “organic government repair capacity” and increasing the budget for spare parts. Given the complexity of the F-35 and its subsystems, it’s hard to see an alternative to a centralized repairs and spare parts system. Still, it’s clear the new fighter’s global logistics system still has a long way to go.

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