The fleet’s mission-capable rate — or the percentage of time a plane can perform one of its assigned missions — was 55 per cent as of March 2023, far below the Pentagon’s goal of 85 per cent to 90 per cent, the Government Accountability Office said on Thursday.
Part of the challenges stem from a heavy reliance on contractors for maintenance that limits the Pentagon’s ability to control depot maintenance decisions. Delays also arise from spare parts shortages, inadequate maintenance training, insufficient support equipment, and a lack of technical data needed to make repairs.
Because of the Pentagon’s inane IP laws, maintenance on these planes is a bureaucratic nightmare: defense contractors are able to limit maintenance of these things to only those they contract because of IP restrictions and are not required to teach the military jack shit. Meanwhile, they’re essentially a paperweight half the time because they’re not getting proper maintenance.
How are we supposed to patrol the Arctic with a plane that needs an American private subcontractor to perform essential maintenance on it?
If any changes are made it will be that the military will be required to pay to have their maintenance staff trained by the manufacture then have them sign NDAs. There’s no way arms manufactures are going to give up their secret sauce, “it’s for security!”
That would still be an improvement, though. I think it’s perfectly fair that US defence contractors get paid for their development, and I’d even accept paying them on a per-repair basis, I just don’t think that Canada’s defence capability should be entirely dependent on when a US company decides to send their repair team.