"Marines Deploy 1st F-35Bs to the Middle East" Topic

Marines training on the ground on the Horn of Africa will see a new set of wings pulling the classic close air support mission: The F-35B Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter…

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It should be interesting to see what the readiness percentages are with this variant. It is by far the most complex of the three types of F-35s.

I posted that a short while back – provides info by type, and also unit.

About 50% on average, though the jump jet is a little lower. 40% seemed to be about the bottom percentage.

Issues with the aircraft, and also replacement parts, still.

Not sure it is really fit for combat.

On the plus side, the gun pods on the F-35B and F-35C are proving to be more accurate than the internal gun on the F-35A, which is a bit of a surprise – probably less a statement about the gun pods than how bad the internal gun's accuracy is, since generally, gun pods aren't very accurate.

Here's some of the detail from a previous post, on the F-35's operational readiness.

Anyone know what the "FMC Rate" is/means?

I'm guessing perhaps fit for combat (probably marginally so), but haven't seen the acronym before.

14% doesn't sound good – see below.

Hope they brought spare tires, since the F-35Bs tires are rated for less than 10 landings, too.

"Below is the OTE chart showing F-35 availability.
As the report notes, "the F-35A FMC rate of 34 percent was significantly higher than other variants, with the F-35B at 14 percent and the F-35C at 15 percent".

"The average monthly utilization rate measures flight hours per aircraft per month. The utilization rate was 16.5 flight hours, reflecting the stable but low availability rate. The F-35A fleet averaged 18.0 flight hours, while the F-35B and F-35C fleets averaged 14.1 and 15.1, respectively."

F-35 AVAILABILITY FOR 12-MONTH PERIOD ENDING SEPTEMBER 2017 (sorry, you'll have to go to the link, since the tabular format doesn't copy well here – scroll down to see the variant breakdowns by unit):

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Suffice it to say, for the F-35B, it varies between 35% – 60%, with an average of about 45% – 50%, or so.

FMC is Fully Mission Capable, everything working properly.

Depending on current definitions, non-FMC could mean that the pilot's seat heater isn't working, or that the gun isn't, or even that the missiles won't launch. But the plane can fly.

Thanks.

I figured it was something like that.

Given that definition, I suspect 14% FMC for the F-35B is rather optimistic.

Well, it is getting closer to 2022, which is the last date I'd seen for the gun software to be completed, so……