Excerpts from an article in the WSJ:
Oct. 29, 2014 8:09 p.m. ET
The Air Force says the U.S. bombing campaign against Islamic extremists is exacerbating its shortage of plane-maintenance experts—a gap that is rekindling tensions with Congress about how to manage the nation’s combat aircraft.
To keep U.S. planes flying over Syria and Iraq, Air Force officials said they have had to deploy hundreds of midlevel maintenance personnel to the overseas missions.
The development has forced officials to block a planned transfer of maintenance staff from other aircraft to the military’s newest plane, the F-35, officials said. That means a possible delay in the deployment of the new-generation fighter jet so older planes can keep flying at a high tempo.
The Air Force has said it intends to declare the F-35 operational in 2016. But the shortage of maintenance experts could push back that target by two years or more, officials say.
The Air Force had planned to move a squadron of older F-15s to the Air National Guard, freeing up 350 maintenance experts to join the F-35 program.
The Air Force also must now devote a larger portion of its maintenance force to the older A-10 “Warthog” fleet. Officials had planned to retire the A-10s and retrain experienced maintenance staff to work on the F-35s. But Congress blocked retirement of the A-10 last year, and both the House and Senate have readied measures requiring the Air Force to keep flying the A-10s.