The F-35 Lightning II fighter aircraft, which began its life as the Joint Strike Fighter many years ago, has had a few “firsts” in the last week, unfortunately not all good. The aircraft flew its first American combat mission over Afghanistan, but also suffered its first crash in South Carolina. Both incidents involved F-35B variants belonging to the U.S. Marine Corps.

Both events came in the same week where the Pentagon and F-35 manufacturer Lockheed Martin announced the 11th round of procurement of the stealth aircraft. As the Pentagon, and overseas buyers buy more of the planes, the cost to build each once decreases. But despite this, the program remains the most expensive weapons system program in human history – and the cost savings are not large enough to satisfy some critics.

In the latest purchase, the Air Force’s F-35A variant, which is also the version that Lockheed will export to U.S. allies, comes in at $89.2 Million, 5.4% lower than the last round of deliveries. The Marines’ version, designed for short take-offs and landings from amphibious assault ships, dropped by 5.7%, but will still cost a hefty $122.4 Million a piece. The largest per-unit drop in price was for the Navy’s F-35C variant, whose price reduced 11.1% to $121.2 Million each.

the f-35 gets its first combat stripes

Israel was the first to use an F-35 in a combat operation, declaring in May that it had used the fighter operationally “twice, on two different fronts.” But Thursday’s sortie over Afghanistan, by Marine corps F-35Bs flying off the USS Exeter in the Indian Ocean, was the first use by American pilots to drop ordnance on a live target.

The jets assigned to the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit’s Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 211 attacked a “fixed Taliban target…in support of ground clearance operations,” a term not defined in joint doctrine. Whatever the mission, military planners considered it a success. Exactly what success in Afghanistan means anymore is like the definition of ground clearance operations: anyone’s guess.

But the Lightning’s operational debut was overshadowed by less exciting news that followed a day later.

F-35 Crash suggests a military aviation crisis

On the campaign trail in New Hampshire during late 1999 and early 2000, I often heard Sen. John McCain brag, in his unique self-deprecating manner, that his greatest achievement was getting a multi-million dollar aircraft shot out from underneath him. McCain told the story for laughs, but crashing a fighter jet is no laughing matter.

Just before noon on Friday outside Beaufort, S.C., a Marine pilot from the Marine Fighter Attack Training Squadron 501 ejected from his F-35B near Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort. The pilot thankfully ejected safely and the Marine Corps announced his release from the hospital on Monday. But the aircraft was a total loss.

This incident is another example of why insiders were making such a big deal of the fact that Monday marked the start of the first fiscal year with a budget in place since FY 2007, before the “surge” in Iraq had even begun. It also marked the second year of relief from the crippling effects of “sequestration” under the Budget Control Act. Forget for now the fiscal mayhem that unpredictable timing for funding caused for program managers. The cuts to the “operations and maintenance” accounts – the money used to pay for training and repair parts – has taken its toll on readiness across the board.

Back in May, Military Times was reporting that at that point, a little more than halfway through the fiscal year, there had been 12 fatal military aircraft incidents that had claimed the lives of 35 service members. The Pentagon refused to call this a “crisis,” but if there had been 11 commercial air crashes and a ground incident that killed 35 civilians, you can bet the public would be outraged. Leaders would be tripping over each other to be the first to a microphone to tell us their solutions.

When a brand new, state-of-the-art aircraft crashes on a clear day – over South Carolina, not the Middle East – it leads me to suspect there has been, and continues to be, a crisis in military aviation that is almost exclusively the fault of inadequate funding.

 

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Tom McCuin is a strategic communication consultant and retired Army Reserve Civil Affairs and Public Affairs officer whose career includes serving with the Malaysian Battle Group in Bosnia, two tours in Afghanistan, and three years in the Office of the Chief of Public Affairs in the Pentagon. When he’s not devouring political news, he enjoys sailboat racing and umpiring Little League games (except the ones his son plays in) in Alexandria, Va. Follow him on Twitter at @tommccuin