SIMI VALLEY, Calif. — Delays to the F-35 fighter’s Technology Refresh 3 upgrades could have a cascading effect that can hinder a serious follow-on modification to the jet, a number one House lawmaker said Saturday.
Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee’s tactical air and land forces panel, told Defense News on the Reagan National Defense Forum in Simi Valley, California, he’s “very disenchanted” by the repeated delays within the TR-3 upgrades.
And he warned the delayed TR-3 rollout will create further scheduling issues within the more expansive upgrade often called Block 4, he added.
TR-3 is predicted to present the F-35 higher displays, computer memory and processing power. But software and integration problems have kept TR-3 from working, and the federal government has refused to simply accept the most recent F-35s rolling rolled off the production lines of manufacturer Lockheed Martin in Fort Price, Texas.
TR-3 was once expected to conclude in April 2023, but that deadline has twice slipped. The Pentagon and Lockheed now say it could come between April and June 2024.
Wittman said that deadline — greater than a 12 months late — is “very problematic, especially since we have now a platform that we spent a major amount of money and time on, and one which we all know isn’t as much as its full capability due to software inadequacies.”
Wittman said he’s not confident the Pentagon and Lockheed will give you the chance to deliver on the newest mid-2024 deadline for TR-3.
“I need to be positive, but call me skeptical,” he said.
The TR-3 technology is obligatory for parts of the Block 4 upgrade, which is able to include the flexibility to hold more long-range precision weapons, latest sensors, more powerful data fusion, increased interoperability with other platforms and advanced electronic warfare capabilities.
The F-35 Joint Program Office told Defense News on Wednesday that it would reply to Wittman’s concerns directly.
The office noted that not all Block 4 capabilities require TR-3 to operate on the F-35, equivalent to the already-delivered Automatic Ground Collision Avoidance System, or Auto GCAS; an interim full-motion video capability; and a few communications technology improvements.
“As hardware increases and is updated, fusion improvements are integrated and other processing-heavy software is added,” the JPO said. “TR-3 shall be needed to power the more advanced capabilities in development.”
The office also said it began delivering the primary Block 4 capabilities in 2019, years ahead of schedule. Those capabilities included Auto GCAS, the Navy’s Joint Standoff Weapon variant often called C-1, and the flexibility to attack moving targets on the bottom with the laser-guided GBU-12 Paveway II and GBU-49 bombs.
A technical baseline review on the F-35′s Block 4 development can also be underway, as Bill LaPlante, the undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, ordered it earlier this 12 months, the office noted.
Technical experts from the Navy and Air Force have spent the previous few months evaluating Block 4′s development schedule, hardware maturity, program risks, software tools, and the skill sets government and industry staff must work on the upgrades.
Lockheed Martin concurred with the Joint Program Office’s response to Defense News and declined to comment further.
Wittman said the F-35 program needs six more test beds of aircraft to focus entirely on rapidly trying out the TR-3 software improvements. The present limited testing infrastructure has led to slow progress on ironing out the issues with TR-3, he said, particularly when the software shuts down.
“What’s happening immediately is, even the structure of the way you do testing and development with the software has resulted in its failures,” Wittman said. “If you will have six test beds, you’ll be able to fly the aircraft and do things concurrently, so your learning curve gets so much faster.”
Wittman said the TR-3 woes show the Pentagon needs to alter its mindset to place an earlier give attention to software in program development.
“For years, the Pentagon has been a hardware-centric organization,” Wittman said. “In today’s world … software must be on the forefront, then hardware must follow that.”
That shall be much more vital because the Air Force moves forward with its collaborative combat aircraft concept, which seeks to team autonomous drone wingmen with F-35s, Wittman said.
He desires to see the Air Force and the Joint Program Office arrange an effort to more closely track the software process and upgrades day-to-day.
“We do an important job in manufacturing the hardware elements of what the aircraft can do,” Wittman said. “But all of the things that we design the hardware around are only enabled if you will have the software. We sort of have gotten things backwards.”
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.
Noah Robertson is the Pentagon reporter at Defense News. He previously covered national security for the Christian Science Monitor. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English and government from the College of William & Mary in his hometown of Williamsburg, Virginia.