Here’s all the military planes that keep falling short on readiness

A new federal watchdog report has flagged a troubling trend among U.S. military aircraft: More than two dozen fleets haven’t met their annual combat-readiness goals in at least a decade.

The Government Accountability Office studied 49 types of airframes across the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps for its Nov. 10 report . Those platforms make up the bulk of American military airpower.

Service officials set yearly benchmarks for a metric called the “mission-capable rate,” or how often a type of aircraft can fly and perform at least one of its combat missions, like close air support or target tracking. Those targets can vary by airframe and by year.

GAO found that 26, or about half, of the aircraft studied never reached their annual readiness goal between fiscal 2011 and 2021, despite the Pentagon spending tens of billions of dollars on aircraft maintenance each year.

That includes all three Army and nine Marine Corps aircraft in the report, six of 22 Air Force platforms, and eight of 15 Navy airframes. They span 10 types of rotorcraft, eight kinds of fighter jets, three tanker aircraft, three cargo planes and two command-and-control platforms.

Just five airframes met their mission-capable goals in at least half of the years studied, and only one — the Air Force’s Vietnam War-era UH-1N Huey helicopter — hit the mark every year.

In 2021 alone, just two of the 49 fleets reached their goals. Seventeen fleets fell short by up to 10 percentage points, while 30 missed the mark by more than 10 points, GAO said.

“The average mission-capable rate for the selected aircraft has fallen for the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps, to varying degrees,” the watchdog said. “The average mission-capable rate for the selected Army aircraft has risen.”

For example, Air Force Times reported in February that, on average, seven out of every 10 planes were available as needed for combat missions, training or other routine operations last year. That number has barely budged in recent years despite concerted efforts to ready aircraft for war.

Lackluster mission-capable rates don’t necessarily mean an airframe can’t deploy.

But they can be a sign that part of a fleet is suffering while resources are focused on keeping the rest aloft, that the fleet is too busy for dedicated maintenance, or that they need to return for tune-ups after minimal flying.

Conversely, high rates can be a sign that airframes aren’t working hard enough. Air Force officials have noted that a jet’s mission-capable rate is highest when it’s freshly repaired and on the ground — not gathering wear and tear in flight.

Some leaders have begun shying away from those rates as a meaningful sign of combat readiness, saying that statistics like sorties logged and maintenance turnaround times offer more insight.

The Pentagon spent about $54 billion to operate and support the airframes reviewed in the study in 2020, nearly $3 billion less than in 2011, GAO said. However, maintenance grew more expensive by $1.2 billion in the same timeframe.

Changes in the size of aircraft inventories, as well as how often pilots are flying, were the biggest drivers of those shifts, according to the report.

Military officials are also trying to focus more on the supply chain and workforce issues that cause mission-capability shortcomings.

Staffing shortages, manufacturing delays for critical components, unscheduled maintenance and the dwindling number of companies that can support decades-old aircraft are among the most pressing problems.

The military also lags behind the commercial aviation sector in predicting when and how aircraft parts will fail, a crucial way to reduce maintenance delays or avoid them altogether.

The services are reviewing the health of each airframe’s sustainment enterprise as required by law, though not as quickly as GAO might like. The Air Force and Navy plan to finish those studies by 2026.

Defense officials argue that speeding up the reviews may overly strain staffers and wouldn’t necessarily fix problems faster.

“While the GAO recommends accelerating the pace of [reviews], this desire clashes with the considerable time, information and data validation requirements to properly conduct a sustainment review,” Vic Ramdass, deputy assistant defense secretary for materiel readiness, replied to the watchdog.

The 26 fleets that did not meet annual mission-capability rate goals at all from fiscal 2011 to 2021 include:

Rachel Cohen is the editor of Air Force Times. She joined the publication as its senior reporter in March 2021. Her work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Frederick News-Post (Md.), Air and Space Forces Magazine, Inside Defense, Inside Health Policy and elsewhere.

一份新的联邦监督报告指出，美国军用飞机出现了一个令人担忧的趋势：超过二十个机队至少十年来都没有达到年度战备目标。

美国政府问责局在其11月10日发布的报告中，对陆军、空军、海军和海军陆战队的49种机型进行了研究。这些平台构成了美国军事空中力量的主体。

军方官员每年都会设定一项名为“任务执行率”的指标基准，该指标衡量的是某种机型能够执行至少一项作战任务（例如近距离空中支援或目标跟踪）的频率。这些目标会因机型和年份而异。

美国政府问责局 (GAO) 发现，在 2011 财年至 2021 财年期间，所研究的飞机中有 26 架（约占一半）从未达到其年度战备目标，尽管五角大楼每年在飞机维护上花费数百亿美元。

报告涵盖了陆军的全部三架飞机和海军陆战队的九架飞机，空军的22个平台中的六架，以及海军的15架飞机中的八架。它们涵盖了10种类型的旋翼机、8种类型的战斗机、3架加油机、3架运输机和2个指挥控制平台。

在所研究的年份中，只有五种机型在至少一半的年份里达到了其任务能力目标，而只有一种机型——美国空军在越南战争时期研制的 UH-1N 休伊直升机——每年都达到了目标。

美国政府问责局表示，仅在2021年，49支舰队中只有两支达到了目标。17支舰队的完成率差额不超过10个百分点，而30支舰队的完成率差额超过10个百分点。

监督机构表示：“空军、海军和海军陆战队所选机型的平均任务可用率均有所下降，下降幅度各不相同。而陆军所选机型的平均任务可用率则有所上升。”

例如，《空军时报》2月份报道称，去年平均每10架飞机中只有7架可供作战任务、训练或其他日常行动使用。尽管近年来各方都在努力使飞机做好战争准备，但这一数字几乎没有变化。

任务执行率不理想并不一定意味着飞机无法部署。

但这可能表明，部分机队正在遭受损失，而资源却集中在维持其余机队的正常飞行上；或者表明机队过于繁忙，无法进行专门的维护；又或者表明机队在飞行次数很少的情况下需要返回进行调整。

反之，过高的故障率可能表明机身的工作负荷不够。空军官员指出，喷气式飞机在维修完毕并停放在地面上时，其任务执行率最高——此时飞机尚未在飞行中积累磨损。

一些领导人开始不再将这些比率视为衡量战斗准备情况的重要指标，他们表示，飞行架次和维护周转时间等统计数据能提供更多参考信息。

美国政府问责局（GAO）表示，2020年五角大楼用于运营和维护该研究中涉及的飞机机型的支出约为540亿美元，比2011年减少了近30亿美元。然而，同期维护成本却增加了12亿美元。

报告指出，飞机库存规模的变化以及飞行员飞行频率的变化是造成这些转变的最大驱动因素。

军方官员也正努力更加关注导致任务能力不足的供应链和劳动力问题。

人员短缺、关键部件制造延误、计划外维护以及能够为几十年前的飞机提供支持的公司数量不断减少，都是目前最紧迫的问题。

在预测飞机部件何时以及如何发生故障方面，军方也落后于商业航空业，而预测飞机部件的故障是减少或完全避免维修延误的关键方法。

各军种正在按照法律要求审查每种机型的维护保障体系的健康状况，但速度可能不及美国政府问责局（GAO）所期望的那么快。空军和海军计划在2026年前完成这些审查。

国防部官员认为，加快审查速度可能会给工作人员带来过大的压力，而且未必能更快地解决问题。

“虽然美国政府问责局建议加快[审查]速度，但这一愿望与正确进行保障审查所需的大量时间、信息和数据验证要求相冲突，”国防部负责物资准备的副助理部长维克·拉姆达斯回复监督机构时表示。

2011财年至2021财年期间，有26支舰队完全没有达到年度任务能力完成率目标，其中包括：

瑞秋·科恩是《空军时报》的编辑。她于2021年3月加入该刊物，担任高级记者。她的作品曾发表在《华盛顿邮报》、《弗雷德里克新闻邮报》（马里兰州）、《空军与太空部队杂志》、《国防内幕》、《卫生政策内幕》等刊物上。