The US refuses to accept new F-35s and retires them early

British news agency quoted a US military source as saying that the manufacturer and the US Department of Defense still disagree on maintenance costs, especially in receiving the new batch of F-35 stealth fighters.

The start was relatively favorable, but when only about 50% of the 280 F-35s delivered were able to operate properly, the US military was more cautious about new F-35 orders.

In 2017, more than 200 F-35s were found to have traces of metal corrosion on their airframes, forcing Lockheed Martin to urgently repair them to return some of the planes to service.

Because of the high operating costs, the aircraft spends 50% of its time in storage. In addition, the F-35 fighter is not yet well-developed. It still often has technical problems and especially the shortage of spare parts.

At the same time, the number of aircraft is increasing according to production contracts. On average, an F-35 spends about 172 days on maintenance per year.

According to information made public by the US Air Force, the operating cost of each F-35 currently costs more than 67,000 USD per flight hour, while the F/A-18 Super Hornet only costs 11,000-24,400 USD per flight hour.

It is for this reason that the Pentagon is considering early retirement of the first generation F-35 fleet because they need to upgrade their software from Block 2B to Block 3F to have more effective combat capabilities but the cost is too high.

The fate of these more than 100 stealth fighters is attracting the attention of the international military community. Two options have been proposed: the first is to transfer these F-35s to the second line, handing them over to the Air National Guard for exploitation; or to use these F-35s for the role of training pilots to fly 5th generation fighters.

The US Air Force said that it is likely that before the end of 2018, the fate of this batch of over 100 F-35s will be decided.

Although the final decision has not been made, the Pentagon's refusal to accept F-35 fighters and consideration of early retirement of the F-35 due to maintenance costs will certainly have a significant impact on customers' procurement and acceptance plans./.