WASHINGTON — The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is facing “significant challenges” on its future weapons and other capability upgrades that, if delayed, could lead on to a production shutdown, the officer accountable for this system told lawmakers this week.
F-35 program executive officer Lt. Gen. Michael Schmidt said in written testimony to the House Armed Services subcommittee on tactical air and land forces that the upgrade generally known as Block 4 has had considerable issues related to the maturity of its hardware design, and timelines for integrating its software.
Block 4 upgrades — intended to permit the F-35 to hold more weapons, higher recognize targets, and improve its electronic warfare capabilities, amongst other features — are also facing serious concurrency problems, Schmidt said in written testimony. Concurrency occurs when a system moves through development and into procurement at the identical time, which makes it harder to repair problems discovered in testing.
“Development and production concurrency is Block 4′s most important challenge, and we’re coping with its consequences today,” Schmidt said. “The F-35 [Joint Program Office], Lockheed Martin, and other industry partners have identified high risk concurrency within the F-35 Block 4 schedule, which might threaten to shut down aircraft production if development slips.”
In a press release to Defense News, Lockheed Martin said some Block 4 capabilities have already been delivered, starting in 2019, years ahead of schedule. Those already-delivered capabilities, which don’t require TR-3 to work, include the F-35′s Automatic Ground Collision Avoidance System, or Auto GCAS, the Navy’s Joint Standoff Weapon variant generally known as C-1, and the power to attack moving targets on the bottom using laser-guided GBU-49 bombs.
Lockheed also said Block 4 hardware and software components are in several stages of development, and will probably be delivered incrementally as contracts are awarded and development on those elements is finished. In its response, Lockheed didn’t address Schmidt’s comments a few potential production shutdown if Block 4 development is further delayed.
The F-35 program can also be struggling to field one other series of improvements, generally known as Technology Refresh 3, that could be a prerequisite for major portions of the Block 4 upgrades. Schmidt’s comments on Block 4 show that multiple F-35 modernization efforts are facing major headwinds, which could have ripple effects on this system for years.
Software problems have delayed TR-3, which was originally meant to be ready in April 2023, but now may very well be finished not less than a yr late. Schmidt said at Tuesday’s hearing slow production of some key parts for TR-3 has also held up the physical completion of some latest jets at Lockheed Martin’s facility in Fort Price, Texas. The federal government shouldn’t be accepting newly built F-35s intended to have TR-3 installed, since it cannot perform the essential check flights.
Jon Ludwigson, director of contracting and national security acquisitions on the Government Accountability Office, said on the hearing the F-35 program’s plans for Block 4 have grown through the years as requirements for the jet have evolved. Block 4′s expected costs have also grown, and it has slipped behind schedule, he said.
Block 4 was originally meant so as to add 66 latest capabilities at a price of $10.6 billion by 2026, Ludwigson said. That has swelled to 80 capabilities costing $16.5 billion, he said, and now isn’t expected to be done until 2029.
Ludwigson acknowledged software development is tough, but in addition pinned a number of the problems with Block 4 on this system not setting realistic expectations on how long it will take to develop the upgrades.
“A few of the challenges which have emerged [with Block 4] is because they didn’t have requirements, they didn’t necessarily have a firm sense of what was technically achievable,” Ludwigson said. “They didn’t have a robust basis for understanding how long these items were going to take. It became a little bit of a journey of discovery and took time for them to work out.”
Schmidt said this system is targeted on eliminating the concurrency problems and setting a sensible delivery schedule.
Bill LaPlante, undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, ordered a technical baseline review on Block 4′s development earlier this yr, Schmidt said. And experts from the Navy and Air Force have been evaluating Block 4′s development schedule, hardware maturity, program risks, software tools, and the talents in the federal government and industry workforces.
The Pentagon also awarded a contract on Block 4 earlier this yr that focuses on reducing the risks of concurrency, he said, including setting milestones for carrying out an intensive review of Block 4′s hardware and software readiness to be folded into future production plenty of F-35s.
Schmidt also said this system needs nine flight sciences aircraft, or F-35s specially configured to check and evaluate modernizations corresponding to Block 4. This system now has the resources to convert three production F-35s into the test jets it needs, Schmidt said. But it surely must convert six more to satisfy its requirements, and that may require congressional authorization.
“The F-35 program must make investments in flight sciences aircraft and software labs at Lockheed Martin and throughout supplier locations to get probably the most operational capability out of the F-35 weapons system,” Schmidt said.
Stephen Losey is the air warfare reporter for Defense News. He previously covered leadership and personnel issues at Air Force Times, and the Pentagon, special operations and air warfare at Military.com. He has traveled to the Middle East to cover U.S. Air Force operations.