Yaaah, there is a supply chain. There is precious little in it though as they are trying like hell to get aircraft to the squadrons. They are almost 900 aircraft short from what was promised. Guess what, the squadron supply chains aren't getting shit for a while. And it's not a new problem. It is a systemic problem that has been affecting almost all of the aircraft in the inventory. Amazingly enough the obama admin wished to buy shiny new toys, but, failed to adequately support them. Where have we heard that before?
'Wiped Out': Air Force losing pilots and planes to cuts, scrounging for spare parts
Then there is the shortage of parts, which is pushing the Air Force to get creative in order to keep these planes airborne. They have had to cannibalize out-of-service planes from what is known as "The Boneyard," a graveyard in the Arizona desert for jets that are no longer flying.
They strip old planes of parts, but now there aren't many left -- posing an obvious problem.
Like their counterparts in the Marine Corps, they even cannibalize museum aircraft to find the parts they need to get planes back into combat.
Capt. Travis Lytton, who works to keep his squadron of B-1’s airborne, showed Fox News a museum aircraft where his maintainers stripped a part in order to make sure one of his B-1s could steer properly on the ground.
'Wiped Out': Air Force losing pilots and planes to cuts, scrounging for spare parts
I can see you have never heard the name "Hangar Queen". Even though it's not supposed to happen, it is a fact of life. The Bird might be in hangar queen status for a week, or two then it's put back together and goes back on the line. This probably goes back to the Wright Flyer. Just a way to get the parts needed quicker than the normal supply chain. AS hard as you anti USAF idiots try, there is no story here.
"The Bone" is no longer in production including many of the spare parts. In the early 70s, we went through the same thing with the C-124C. It's not listed in the active inventory but low and behold, there sat two in Anchorage flying their merry heads off. Every "Shakey" was high time. They spent most of their lives flying over the water long distance flights. The reason they were still around was that they were the only bird in the inventory that could land on a gravel runway while carrying an eight wheeled emergency fire truck. When one was lost or would run out of time on the Air Frame we would either strip it in place (sinking it into the ocean) or fly the bird down to DM (boneyard), park it right next to the one we wanted, strip all the good stuff from one and transfer it to the one we are taking. We would fly the New? bird out of there. This is why the Boneyard was created. Using it may sound shocking to you but there really isn't any news here.
The AV8B has long since gone out of production. Just for spare parts, when the British retired their AV8As, the Marines bought them for their own boneyard so they would have parts. The parts are no longer in production so you do what you have to do.
All of these examples are to show that Hangar Queens, boneyards and easter egg hunts are as old as flight itself. Right now, the F-18C, F-16A, F-15C, B-52, all the aging birds are using up the resources quickly out of the Boneyards. When that resource has been consumed then all the rest join their ghosts in DM and meet the wrecking ball.
What may be cutting news to you may be old hat to us old timers. Three Aircraft come to mind as being headed the rest of the journey; AV8B, F-18C and A-10C. All three are no longer in production and are hanging on a wing and a prayer. All three's lives have been or are going to be life extended. But you can only do that for so long before they start falling out of the sky. Your "Breaking News" ain't so breaking at all. It's old history.