Originally Posted by
ORAC
I’m banking, in the present climate, on the last two sentences reference the business case.
If you need SSBN to keep one in station, yo7 need at least 4 to keep one AEW in the air - and with servicing schedules and snags that’s with luck.
One in deep service, one in routine maintenance you can’t maintain one airborne. You might manage to rotate 2, but one snag and you’re back to one - with transit times as well as TOT issues.
When asked on F-35 he said he'd expect 10% unavailable to front line, and later said anything below 20% was a 'good figure'.
In the bygone days of yore you were allowed to 'round up', so in a fleet of 3 you'd be allowed 1 unavailable. (Think Nimrod R). But for LTC89 that changed to 'round down' (accompanied by a significant drop in support funding), so in a fleet of 3 you're not allowed any!!