PROCUREMENT: Top Marine Corps aviator wants F-35Bs faster than planned.

The Marine Corps’ top aviator is hungry for more F-35Bs, telling reporters on Wednesday that he would like to see the service’s buy rate increase to 37 jets per year.

That would almost double the planned rate of F-35B procurement over the next few years, which is projected to sit at 20 aircraft per year from fiscal years 2018 to 2021.

“We have the infrastructure in place,” said Lt. Gen. Jon Davis, deputy commandant for aviation. “Bottom line is we’ve had a very anemic ramp, so we’ve been holding onto the older airplanes longer. If asked by the American people to get the airplanes faster, I guarantee we’d put them into play very, very quickly.

“We’d transition squadrons faster is what we’d do,” he said, adding that if the service were allowed to purchase 37 B-variants a year, it would be able to retire its legacy F/A-18 Hornet and Harrier planes by 2026.

The more a jet ages, the more expensive and time-consuming it is to maintain. And the more a jet is subjected to the rigors of war, the faster it ages. The average age of our jet fighters is far above historical norms, and we’ve been at war for 15 years. That combination creates a maintenance nightmare, which hurts readiness — as evidenced by this week’s report that nearly two-thirds of the Navy’s F-18s are unavailable for flight duty, and over 70% of the Marine Corps’.

Faster procurement is the obvious fix, but the previous administration refused any substantive or genuine budget negotiations. The bill for years of neglect has come due.