Pilots of the RAF's most advanced fighter jets are being grounded due to a shortage of aircraft spares, an MPs' report has revealed.
Five Typhoon pilots were temporarily prevented from taking to the skies because the lack of parts meant they could not put in enough flying hours to keep their skills up to date.
The Commons Public Accounts Committee also said the shortages were affecting the overall training programme.
It said only eight of the RAF's 48 Typhoon pilots qualified for ground attack operations - the role it is currently being used for in Libya.
The RAF is currently having to cannibalise aircraft for spare parts in order to keep the maximum number of Typhoons in the air on any given day.
And the committee said the Ministry of Defence had warned the problems were likely to continue until 2015, when it expects the supply of spares finally to have reached a "steady state".
"The (MoD) relies on a small group of key industrial suppliers who have the technical and design capability to build, upgrade and support Typhoon," the committee said.
"Problems with the availability of spare parts have meant that Typhoons are not flying as many hours as the department requires.
"The Typhoon supply chain is complex and stretches across Europe. However, the department admitted that it had not been managed well enough or delivered all the required parts when needed."
Overall, it said that while the MoD was now buying 30% fewer Typhoons than it had originally planned, the cost of the project had risen by an estimated £3.5bn.
That represents a 75% increase in the cost of each individual aircraft.
It comes just days after it emerged the RAF's Typhoon multirole jet deployed its weapons for the first time on operations - destroying two of Colonel Gaddafi's tanks.
Defence Secretary Liam Fox insisted the project was "under control and back on track".
"The NAO's (National Audit Office) March report concluded that after years of financial mismanagement and project delays under the previous government, the Typhoon project has been turned around," he said.
"The Typhoon is a world beating, air-to-air fighter and is fast developing a ground attack capability as is being demonstrated in Libya."