August 17, 2018 | International, Aerospace, Naval
The US Navy’s fight to fix its worn-out Super Hornet fleet is making way
By: David B. Larter WASHINGTON – The U.S. Navy is slowly making progress to restore to fighting condition its hard-worn fleet of F/A-18 Super Hornet fighters, which last year had just one in three of its fighters ready to deploy. Today, almost half of the Navy's 546 Super Hornets are considered “mission capable,” a sign that the readiness investments made in the Mattis era are beginning to bear fruit. In an Aug. 7 media roundtable, Navy Secretary Richard Spencer told reporters the Navy had been chipping away at long-term down aircraft that had been clogging the aviation maintenance depots. The Navy started 2018 with 241 fully mission capable aircraft, and that number is now at 270, he said. Spencer credited the budget increases from the last two years for the turn-around, but also attributed the success to finding new processes that save time. Specifically, he highlighted a program called the Depot Readiness Initiative. As part of that program, Spencer said, the Navy is letting the depots perform regular calendar maintenance as well as depot-level maintenance at the same time, a move that cuts out redundant work by performing scheduled and depot maintenance at the same time. In the roundtable, Spencer said he was stunned at how badly degraded readiness was in the service when he took over. “I didn't have a full appreciation for the size of the readiness hole, how deep it was, and how wide it was. my analogy is you have a thoroughbred horse in the stable that you're running in a race every single day. “You cannot do that. Something's going to happen eventually. ... If you look at where we are now, I can tell you we're a more ready and lethal force today than we were last year.” Full article: https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2018/08/16/the-us-navys-fight-to-fix-its-worn-out-super-hornet-fleet-is-making-way