Aircraft fleets pass through maintenance cycles, so every aircraft is not available for operations all the time. The newspaper report being criticized said that only a third of Britain's F-35 fleet was available. Its presentation of the remaining two-thirds as a disaster is challenged for overlooking normal maintenance. The exchange supplies no detailed breakdown of the aircraft concerned, so it does not establish how much of that particular availability figure maintenance explains.
Notable Point · 1:01:36-1:02:31
Aircraft availability is not the same as fleet failure
A report that only part of the F-35 fleet is immediately available must be read against normal maintenance and readiness cycles rather than treated as proof that the force is unusable.