A handheld flashlight left inside an engine inlet of an F-35 fighter was sucked into the engine during a maintenance ground run at Luke Air Force Base in March 2023, causing nearly $4 million worth of damage, according to a new accident investigation report. The ...
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DOT&E Director Nickolas H. Guertin said the test enterprise must be reimagined, so weapons are no longer tested in isolation.
The U.S. comptroller general, who oversees the Government Accountability Office, will assess sustainment challenges of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and report back to Congress by March 2023 under a House Armed Services subcommittee markup of the fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act. The readiness ...
The F-35’s troubled sustainment enterprise is getting better but is still falling short of the services’ goals for the program, officials told Congress. And lawmakers are running out of patience. “The message for me—and I hope from my committee, and I know I'm going to ...
The hardware systems, called the ODIN Base Kit (OBK), were installed between July 2021 and January 2022.
The F-35 Joint Program Office’s efforts to revamp the fighter’s troubled sustainment and maintenance enterprise reached a new milestone as the JPO announced the installation of 14 hardware systems for its new Operational Data Integrated Network.
Chronically high operating costs might be tamed with a new deal. A new sustainment contract between the F-35 Joint Program Office (JPO) and Lockheed Martin, inked in September, will give the company a chance to bring down operating costs over the next three years.
Frank Kendall became the 26th Secretary of the Department of the Air Force on July 28, 2021. An engineer, lawyer, and West Point graduate, Kendall was the Defense Department undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology, and logistics from 2012 to 2017. He spoke with Editor ...
Despite solid combat performance, the F-35’s high maintenance costs and ongoing parts supply problems continue to be a drag on the fifth-generation fighter aircraft, giving critics ammunition as Congress readies to receive the Biden administration’s first budget. Lockheed Martin is delivering F-35s at a rate ...
The F-35A still isn’t in full production, but it’s proving its effectiveness daily.
House lawmakers hammered Lockheed Martin for persistent problems in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter enterprise during a July 22 hearing, as the defense giant declined to promise it would fully reimburse the Pentagon for defective equipment files. At issue are electronic equipment logs, which act ...
Members of one House committee are calling for an investigation into Lockheed Martin for its handling of F-35 spare parts, while another has crafted language in its markup of the 2021 defense policy bill calling for an assessment of the Joint Strike Fighter’s troubled sustainment ...
