[monocasa]

And the F35 comes with tons of contract terms in favor of the manufacturer. Like I've heard about how planes have been grounded because although an air base has the parts and mechanics rated to perform the repair on site, the servicing contract only allows it to be performed by the service contractors who needed to be flown in.

[Jtsummers]

The DOD can't even force companies to hand over data, such as schematics, if it wasn't in the original contract without providing extra payment negotiated with the contractor, and they can't force the contractor to set a particular price. This has happened on numerous systems. One of the biggest I'm aware of was the H-60 where the DOD ended up reverse engineering the early helicopters in order to maintain them, all because the DOD program office forgot to include a data rights clause in the contract (Sikorski didn't forget, they just didn't remind the DOD).