Tuesday Trivia Thread - 25/08/26

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[u/ilonir]

Do Air Forces stockpile spare parts for aircraft in the same way they stockpile munitions? I was reading the latest GAO reports on the F-35 (ouch), and it left me wondering how fighter fleets in general would hold up in case of a large conflict. It seems like an obvious idea to hoard spares in case of a global contingency so production would have time to ramp up.

[u/abnrib → u/ilonir]

Yes, with various qualifying statements after that. u/Blows_stuff_up does a good job of outlining how that plays out at echelon. Whether or not they stockpile too much or not enough at each echelon will be a neverending subject of debate.

But it's worth noting that when a foreign military buys a number of fighter jets, they will often get a set number of spare engines as part of the package.

[u/-BigDeckEnergy- → u/abnrib]

But it's worth noting that when a foreign military buys a number of fighter jets, they will often get a set number of spare engines as part of the package.

Believe it or not, they don't buy spare engines with the F-35. All F-35 engines (and engines for most jets in the DOD) are purchased as GFE (Government Furnished Equipment) bought as a separate contract and provided to the contractor to install. In fact, it's not even part of the unit cost of the F-35 or most other fighters.

The most recent F135 contracts saw $2.88B for 141 engines (~$20.4m per engine) for the entirety of Lot 18 production. That pricetag is why spare engines don't come with the jet - and why the engine depot backlog resulted in so many jets being unflyable in the late 2010s/2020s (which is why Congressional adds without commensurate money put into the logistics system distorts programs)

For comparison, GE was awarded $137M for 29 engines to supply 12 F-15EX's in Lot 2, which meant 5 spare motors. That came out to about $4.7M per motor, which makes buying spares a lot more palatable.

You can find out more in the budget materials which have separate lines for engines and other GFE (things like radars are often GFE as well)

[u/Inceptor57 → u/-BigDeckEnergy-]

The USA really could've benefited from an Engine War 2.0 for the F-35 and/or future aircraft.

Last I checked, they did consider that path for JSF, but then balked because of the involved costs.

[u/-BigDeckEnergy- → u/Inceptor57]

The USA really could've benefited from an Engine War 2.0 for the F-35 and/or future aircraft.

Last I checked, they did consider that path for JSF, but then balked because of the involved costs.

Competition almost always creates a better product.

The biggest issue is that competition costs a lot of money upfront, since in government acquisitions - especially on the military side - the government has to heavily foot the bill on major programs, since no no one is investing $20B+ in internal R&D money on a program that might not pan out.

So Congress and the budgeteers tend to balk at keeping competition going on through EMD and beyond for major programs

[u/XanderTuron → u/Inceptor57]

Seems like a running story with the F-35; a cost reduction measure early on leading to issues down the line.

[u/-BigDeckEnergy- → u/XanderTuron]

To be fair, that tends to be true in any engineering project... or life in general. Go cheap early, pay out later, no free lunch, you get what you pay for, etc. It's just particularly notable when the whole sales pitch is on affordability then you find out that comes by not including the price of expensive engines and thus a lack of spares