The program is trying to quash bugs that force pilots to reboot in midair, GAO says.
The Pentagon has refused delivery of so many F-35s that Lockheed Martin is running out of places to put them, according to a new report from a government watchdog agency.
Last July, the government stopped accepting new F-35s because of hardware and software delays with Technology Refresh-3, a $1.8-billion effort to enable new capabilities for the jet.
Once the TR-3 upgrade is ready, it will take about a year to deliver all of the jets Lockheed has parked, GAO said.
The Pentagon is working on a plan to restart accepting the jets without the full TR-3 upgrade because, officials say, a part-capability is better than nothing.
Of course they are. It looks bad when a weapon system with a total cost of $2 trillion is still buggy after 20 years.
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Atta boy! Keep lowering the bar, until it meets what Lockheed delivers. No mystery to me why Boeing is walking away from the commercial market, to live off of DoD. Airlines would not accept the sloth that DoD does.
Steve
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Forbes comes to LMT defense industry rescue.
This gap is particularly acute within the F-35 stealth advanced 5th generation aircraft inventory.
With China increasing its aggressive actions in the Pacific, Russia advancing in Ukraine, Iran destabilizing the Middle East, and North Korea expanding its nuclear arsenal, now is not the time to take more risk by buying fewer fighters. Fail to adequately steward this capability and we risk losing a war.
I fail to see how loading up on low functioning aircraft is the solution.
Forbes:“HEY! Look over there China threat!”
China understands the importance of fighters. They are producing approximately 100 J-20s per year —an advanced fighter with many 5th generation-like characteristics including low-observability (stealth). Their current J-20 inventory exceeds our F-22 count by a significant margin, and theirs is still growing. A global fighter race is in play, and it is time we decide to compete.
Forbes:“The US isn’t spending enough on defense!”
The U.S. Air Force is in a force structure capacity nosedive. It did plan for recapitalization of its aircraft, but the result of decades of underfunding due to paying the post-Cold War ‘peace dividend,’ and the Defense Department’s prioritization of counterinsurgency fights over preparing for great power competition, is a fighter force not large enough to campaign at the levels our defense strategy demands. To this point, in 2023, the Air Force was forced to withdraw all its F-15s from Kadena Air Force Base—America’s largest base in the Pacific—because it did not have enough new fighters to replace the F-15s that hit the end of their service life.
I would rate the above as propaganda suitable for Pravda but no where else.
The F35 program now approaches $2 trillion in cost.
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The real deal is, since the F35 is now a 25 year old aircraft, (twenty of those years used for “development”, not production) I have seen proposals that 35 production be terminated early, so Billions more can be spent “developing” something else.
Steve
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