WASHINGTON — The Defense Department will stop accepting some newly built F-35 Joint Strike Fighters starting next month as delays in upgrading the fighter drag on.
The planned delivery halt of latest fighters loaded with Technology Refresh 3 hardware means manufacturer Lockheed Martin can have to store dozens of the planes at its essential factory in Fort Price, Texas, for much of the remainder of the 12 months, and maybe into spring 2024.
The F-35′s Technology Refresh 3 effort — a slate of improvements that aim to present the fighter higher displays, computer memory and processing power — was originally due this past April. TR-3 is obligatory before the F-35 can receive a more expansive modernization referred to as Block 4, which can allow the fighter to hold more long-range precision weapons, improve its electronic warfare capability and supply higher goal recognition.
The TR-3 schedule has slipped considerably, and the F-35 Joint Program Office is now expecting it to reach no sooner than this December — and maybe as late as April 2024, a full 12 months behind schedule.
The F-35 Joint Program Office said in a press release to Defense News that the TR-3 delays will in turn disrupt deliveries, causing latest fighters to must be stored within the meantime.
“Starting later this summer, F-35 aircraft coming off the production line with TR-3 hardware won’t be accepted until relevant combat capability is validated in accordance with our users’ expectations,” JPO spokesman Russ Goemaere said in an email. “The JPO and Lockheed Martin will ensure these aircraft are safely and securely stored until [acceptance] occurs.”
Breaking Defense first reported the Defense Department’s plan to not accept latest F-35s.
Lockheed is now constructing F-35s with TR-3 hardware installed, and the primary such fighter is anticipated to return off the production line by the tip of July, Goemaere said.
The challenge lies within the TR-3 software and getting the programming to work with the brand new hardware., he said.
In March, F-35 program executive officer Lt. Gen. Michael Schmidt told the House Armed Services subcommittee on tactical air and land forces that the event of TR-3′s hardware had lagged behind and its production began slow, but that it had improved and have become reliable.
Software integration, Schmidt said, began late and was proving difficult.
The JPO on Monday said the Defense Department will proceed to just accept deliveries of fighters with the previous hardware and software referred to as Technology Refresh 2.
“The federal government and industry team will proceed to work this issue until full resolution is achieved,” Goemaere said.
Lockheed said it stays committed to delivering the primary TR-3-enabled F-35 this 12 months.
“Our team is fully dedicated to delivering TR-3 F-35 aircraft and can proceed to work with the JPO on software development while maintaining the very best levels of safety and quality,” the corporate said in a press release to Defense News. “We proceed to deliver aircraft within the TR-2 configuration as planned.”
CEO Jim Taiclet this 12 months downplayed the potential for the issues to affect F-35 deliveries. In an April earnings call, after the TR-3 delays were acknowledged to lawmakers, he said the corporate expected deliveries to be lower than anticipated, but said they’d be a “fraction” of total Lockheed’s total deliveries and would have “little to no” effect on the corporate’s aeronautics revenue.
If the issue will not be resolved by the tip of the 12 months, perhaps dozens of latest F-35s could possibly be undelivered by the tip of the 12 months.
Lockheed Martin said in an email to Defense News that it is just too early to say what number of fighters is likely to be affected, and the corporate didn’t say what number of F-35s with TR-3 hardware it expects to construct this 12 months. The corporate originally planned to deliver between 147 and 153 total fighters in 2023.
Lockheed on Monday said that it has to date delivered greater than 45 F-35s this 12 months, with about 50 more TR-2 F-35s now under construction.
This might be the third time in lower than a 12 months that F-35 deliveries have been halted. In September 2022, the Pentagon announced that it had temporarily halted F-35 deliveries after the invention of a Chinese-sourced alloy had for years been used to make a key magnet within the fighter. Those deliveries resumed in October 2022 after the Pentagon decided the Chinese material didn’t pose a danger to security or flight safety and issued a waiver.
Pre-delivery acceptance flights were also halted in December, which had the effect of also halting deliveries, as a result of an engine vibration problem that led to a Dec. 15 mishap involving an F-35B. After a fix was put in place that allowed Lockheed Martin to resume acceptance flights, the Defense Department once more began accepting latest F-35s.
Within the March hearing, subcommittee chairman Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va., called the TR-3 delays “unacceptable,” and said it could hurt Air Force squadrons that need the brand new fighters to interchange older, retiring aircraft.
Wittman also quoted an unnamed Air Force official who said of the F-35, “We currently are paying for an awesome capability, but we’re currently only getting a very good capability fielded.”
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.