{"id":35516,"date":"2019-09-04T21:05:15","date_gmt":"2019-09-04T21:05:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/airforcetimes\/uncategorized\/2019\/09\/04\/f-22-f-35-wont-hit-mattis-readiness-targets\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T22:26:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T22:26:18","slug":"f-22-f-35-wont-hit-mattis-readiness-targets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/airforcetimes\/news\/your-air-force\/2019\/09\/04\/f-22-f-35-wont-hit-mattis-readiness-targets\/","title":{"rendered":"F-22, F-35 jets won\u2019t hit Mattis\u2019 readiness targets"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 The U.S. Air Force\u2019s stealthy fighters will not meet an 80 percent mission-capable rate requirement set by former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, top officials revealed Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Appearing at the 2019 Defense News Conference<\/a>, Lt. Gen. Mark Kelly, deputy chief of staff for operations, said that the F-22 and F-35A would both fall short of the capability target set by Mattis shortly before his exit from the Pentagon. The F-16, however, \u201cshould\u201d hit that target rate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a memo first revealed<\/a> by Defense News last October, Mattis ordered the Pentagon\u2019s F-35, F-22, F-16 and F-18 aircraft inventories to hit 80 percent mission-capability rates. A July investigation by sister publication Air Force Times<\/a> revealed that in fiscal 2018, when Mattis issued the memo, the service was in a readiness nose dive: Of the 5,413 or so aircraft in the fleet, the percentage able to fly at any given time decreased steadily each year since at least FY12, when 77.9 percent of aircraft were deemed flyable. By FY17, that metric plunged to 71.3 percent, and it dipped again to 69.97 percent in FY18.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Analysts were skeptical that such an increase could be achieved in just one year, and it appears that skepticism was well-founded. However, Kelly argued, not all mission-capable rates are created equal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe learned a lot from the MC80 [mission-capable 80 percent] effort. One of the big things we learned is that our long-range readiness strategy, which takes a lot more consideration than MC80, is frankly a more viable strategy,\u201d he said of an effort that takes a more holistic approach to whether needed assets are ready to use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMC80 is actually a very important metric of how ready we are to go to war, but there is an easy way for the Air Force to achieve MC80 on any airframe, and that\u2019s to just stop flying. We actually flew more,\u201d Kelly said.<\/p>\n\n\n\t