The armed services have been remarkably disciplined about not fiddling with the requirements of the F-35 strike fighter, said Larry Lawson, executive vice president of Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, in an interview. “They’ve been pretty solid on holding requirements steady,” said Lawson. “Together” with the services, he said, “we’ve had to flex around some of the demands that have manifested themselves in the actual fielding, for example, of the [information technology] systems,” and that has driven some requirements changes. But, “the government’s done a very good job, I think, of sticking with the fundamentals,” said Lawson. Lockheed Martin has added a new facility and 100 new software engineers to stay on top of the millions of lines of code that the F-35 uses, he told the Daily Report June 19.
Gene Smith, Former POW and AFA Chair, Dies at 91
Jan. 19, 2026
Lt. Col. Richard “Gene” Smith, who overcame five and a half years as a prisoner of war in the notorious Hanoi Hilton from 1967 until 1973, died Jan. 16. He was one day short of his 91st birthday.
