Syria conflict: Half of German Tornado jets 'not airworthy'

BBC News ^ | 2 December 2015

[sukhoi-30mki]

Only 29 of Germany's 66 Tornado jets are airworthy, a defence ministry report has revealed.

It comes two days before German MPs are expected to vote in favour of military action against Islamic State (IS) militants in Syria.

Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen has stressed that only six of the operational Tornado jets would be needed for the proposed mission.

A vote on the UK's involvement takes place in parliament on Wednesday.

Germany decided to join the fight against IS after an appeal by French President Francois Hollande in the wake of the 13 November Paris attacks.

But the readiness of Germany's armed forces has long been the subject of criticism.

'Long and dangerous'

"The state of our flying systems remains unsatisfactory," the German army's chief of staff General Volker Wieker was quoted as saying on Wednesday.

The defence ministry report, obtained by German media, blamed the problem on the "lack of availability of various spare parts".

Six Tornado reconnaissance aircraft, a naval frigate and a 1,200-strong force will be sent to Syria under the proposals backed by the German cabinet on Tuesday.

[sukhoi-30mki]

[Robert A Cook PE]

Sure, it is a funding ploy by the German defense dept to get more money.

But WHY wasn’t this brought up WHEN THEY FOUND IT? Not when the troops need to deploy?

[Yo-Yo]

Nothing new. When I was in the Air Force at Mtn. Home AFB in the late 1970s, we flew the F-111A and there were never more than 30 of the approximately 110 planes on base that were mission capable on any given day. Many aircraft were perpetually down because they were uses as cannibalization parts sources.

Sometimes there was a push to get the hanger queens in the air, so we'd take a flying aircraft, k-ball everything we needed to get the hanger queen flying, and turn the former serviceable aircraft into a new hanger queen.

Some of the structural parts just don't grow on trees for these older aircraft.

FWIW NASA did the same thing with their Shuttle fleet.

[Mr. Blond]

Tornadoes are a bit long in the tooth anyways, it’s a waste of money.

[Jimmy Valentine]

Somewhere, Helmuth Von Moltke weeps.