"We found in April 2024 that the F-35 has not met its targets for mission capable rates for the past several years," the report said on Wednesday. "In fiscal year 2023, the F-35A and F-35B variants were below the full mission-capable minimum-performance target by more than 27 and 45 percentage points, respectively."
Also, each F-35 variant in fiscal year 2023 did not meet its target for mission-capable minimum performance by at least 13 percentage points, the GAO said.
"Slow repair times for the F-35 fleet have resulted in over 10,000 components waiting to be repaired -substantially above desired levels. At the same time, a lack of technical data, spare parts, and training hinders the ability of maintainers to maintain the aircraft," the report said.
According to the program’s 2023 estimates, the Air Force will pay $6.6 million annually to operate and sustain an individual F-35 aircraft, well above the $4.1 million 2018 target, the GAO said. Since 2014, the GAO has made 43 recommendations to improve the F-35 program but 30 of them (about 70%) remain unimplemented, the report said.