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But because of the program's unique concurrency strategy, in which deliveries of aircraft started years before the design was finalized, 187 of the aircraft will never be capable of combat operations -- not unless they're sent back to the factory and re-manufactured.

The Air Force needs pilots. They have a shortage of jet aircraft for training new pilots.The Air Force knows that even a airplane that is incapable of going to combat is useful for training. They've had enough delays in getting aircraft for training pilots and they cannot afford more.
https://www.dodbuzz.com/2017/1...

I doubt the Air Force cares all that much if these air frames cannot fight, they'll still need them to train pilots while the development continues. When new ones, that are able to fight, come out of the factory the Air Force knows that they'll have pilots that can fly them in combat. I'm certain these new F-35 pilots will need some "refresher" training with the new fully capable aircraft but that's going to be much better training they'd have than if they flew aging T-38 aircraft, or even the F-15, beforehand.

I tried looking up how many training fighters the USAF keeps on hand and I only got estimates. Best I can tell a fighter training wing has over 50 fighters to train with. Best I can tell the USAF has three fighter training wings, with only one that currently has F-35 aircraft. The other two train on the F-16 and F-15. So, if we assume that the USAF is going to transfer all three current training wings from F-16 and F-15 to F-35 in the coming years, and each needs 60 aircraft, then that's 180 training F-35 aircraft that they need. So, we see 187 non-combat ready air frames? I think I just found a place where the USAF can use those 187 F-35 air frames.

One article said something about a potential of many more F-35 air frames being not up to combat specifications, as many as 900. Well, that could be a problem. If the number of non-combat F-35 air frames is as much as 300 then that likely fills any needs the USAF needs for training and testing. Should it get much higher then the USAF will have to do something more than just hold them back for non-combat roles. But, I've noticed something about USAF air frames in the past. We'll see "blocks" of aircraft with slightly differing hardware and software that separate them from earlier aircraft. We'll also see aircraft get a new letter designation from being upgraded, such as F-14A variants getting upgrades to F-14B specifications. I can understand why the UASF might delay upgrading these air frames, they can fly them as trainers now and when new upgrades are developed they can bring them in to get what is new in 15 or 20 years, like the F-14, instead of what comes out today. Even if the numbers of non-combat F-35 air frames number in the hundreds, when the total number planned for production is in the thousands, there is still a lot of room to shuffle these non-combat air frames around as trainers, spares, testing, and so forth, for years before sending them back for upgrades to combat readiness. At that point they'd be upgraded to what's current then, not what's current now.

Seeing as any aircraft, military or not, will typically go back to the manufacturer periodically anyway for maintenance they can get the maintenance and any upgrades they deem necessary at the same time.

Oh, another thing I saw as a common practice in the USAF, is taking "totaled" air frames and using what parts they can as spares. In the unfortunate, but likely, event of a future F-35 crashes then the parts can be used to upgrade a current "trainer" F-35 to combat specifications.

Without repair capabilities, availability for actual combat is probably zero; but it's probably zero anyway until the software improves.

If they plan to have 3000+ flying by 2035 as I read elsewhere then that means they plan on making somethin

The US military has put all of its eggs into one basket. The military needs new planes and the only available new plane is the F-35. Therefore, there is only one reasonable course of action: deal with it. If the repair facilities are not up to snuff, then spend the money and do what needs to be done. There is no Plan B (or "Plane B" since we are talking about planes here).

I read both articles.

The first article makes the case that "concurrency" has been a disaster. "Concurrency" is the idea that the new plane was delivered in generations. The first F-35 planes delivered are much less capable than the final generation (the "Block 3F" plane, which is scheduled for release now, over a decade after the first F-35 flew). The first article's main outrage is that several hundred early-gen F-35 planes may never be upgraded to Block 3F; the military is seriously considering leaving them unfit for any other use than as trainers, and using the money thus freed up to just buy more newer-gen F35s.

I am not an expert on military stuff or on government procurement, so please take my opinions with a grain of salt. That said: I am not convinced that "concurrency" has been a disaster. The F-35 is truly a quantum leap in the state of the art of military aircraft; its "sensor fusion" features are dramatically more advanced than the F-22. We are just now getting the Block 3F features. Would we really have been better served by the plane remaining vaporware until 2017? Didn't the early flight hours with the F-35 give us useful information? Is there no value to having pilots training on the real aircraft? Hasn't it been useful to fly the F-35 in training exercises to see how well it actually does? I am not competent to put a price tag estimate on how much value there is in all of the above. But I did find a recent article from Forbes where someone makes the case that "concurrency" has been a net win for the F-35 program, so please read this and decide whether you buy his arguments:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/lorenthompson/2017/09/29/how-concurrency-in-building-the-f-35-fighter-has-proven-to-be-a-big-plus/#7cd2b7bc7147

By the way, I would not be in favor of a new fighter jet program being run the same way as the F-35 program was run... I think that now that the F-35 has (with great pain) demonstrated the quantum leap in fighter performance, a follow-on program should be able to be run as more of an incremental development, with less risk and drama.

The second article is about how several branches of the military are behind schedule on building maintenance facilities for the F-35, and how that is impacting readiness numbers. As I said above, my only comment on this: we have no choice but the F-35, so we just need to spend the money and fix the problem.

Also, one thing to keep in mind about the F-35: because of its unique combination of stealth, sensors, and flight range, it can do missions with fewer aircraft than 3rd-generation fighters:

One scenario called for a four-ship of F-35Bs to launch from an amphibious assault ship into a "double-digit" (examples might include S-300 or Buk-M1) surface-to-air missile and high-end fighter threat environment to hit a strategic target. While such a mission might be "marginally successful"--at best--when flown by a dozen or more aircraft like the Hornet, the four F-35Bs completed the scenario with near impunity. "It was like watching a pack of dogs going after something," Davis said.

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/f-35b-stealth-fighter-how-the-us-marine-corps-could-dominate-17198

So even if it turns

Seriously, they don't have specialized equipment for high altitude jumps or to detect radiation?!
I can only hope that for a special forces tactical assault kit they are getting some custom designed ones and not off-the-shelf phones.

The article links to another article at dodbuzz that gives some better info.

First off, this is entirely off-topic. Apart from being built under the name "Lockheed Martin", the Atlas V is completely unrelated.to the F-35. Even that connection is a stretch, as they're managed under completely different divisions, and the Atlas is actually being built by a partnership between Lockheed Martin and Boeing.

Second, you're only citing half of the story. The DoD originally asked for 42 F-35s, but had to cut back the order to 34 due to sequestration. The House Appropriations Committee denied some of the Pentagon's other requests, and moved that money into purchasing the additional F-35s.

Finally, I find it interesting that your very first post to Slashdot is a heavily partisan off-topic piece, very nearly quoted verbatim from the article I've linked, but conveniently missing the paragraph that gives an even perspective to the matter. I have a sneaking suspicion you're not intending to improve this discussion.

ULA prefers Atlas V because it is more profitable for them. But it uses engines from Russia.

The Russian engines are purchased from a company with ties to one of the people targeted by US sanctions against Russia... so the judge has granted the injunction to prevent purchasing those Russian engines.

ULA has a stockpile of some Russian engines already, and they have the (less profitable for them) Delta IV if they can't launch Atlas V for any reason... and running out of engines would be one of those reasons. But ULA would prefer to continue buying engines. But we've been paying them to have both rockets available, so they'd better be able to show up with what they've promised.

Separate from this injunction, SpaceX is asking for a review of the large block by of ULA cores, as it was done just before (a few days before) one of the final milestones of SpaceX being qualified to launch for the air force. I think it's not unreasonable for them to say that it's unacceptable to do a huge purchase when if you wait for a few days you would have multiple vendors competing for the bid.

Even John McCain thinks that contract smells fishy: link

You mean the A-10 that's going away?

Both the USAF and the U.S. Army field Predators. The Army has them driven by sergeants, and has autoland installed. The USAF has them driven by officer pilots, and refuses to have autoland installed on their birds.

USAF drone crash rates are much higher than Army crash rates.

Just so I am clear, there is quite a bit of openness about the history and current state of the f-35 program. Where are the Solyndra documents?