The Department of the Defense and the military services want to take more control over the massive F-35 sustainment enterprise—and are required by law to do so in 2027—but they lack a detailed plan to do so and should reassess their approach to key parts ...
F-35 Joint Program Office
Declaring “full rate production” for the F-35 may come in early 2024, but the declaration may be moot, as the jet is already being built at nearly its maximum planned rate, Program Executive Officer Lt. Gen. Michael J. Schmidt said.
The Navy, which awards all F-35 contracts, has awarded deals to Lockheed Martin and Pratt & Whitney for just over $1 billion, covering long-lead parts, F-35 helmets, and F135 engines.
The F-35’s engine may have parts made from contaminated nickel powder, but the risk to the fleet is considered small, the Joint Program Office and Pratt & Whitney said. Inspections of suspect parts have been made for two years.
It’s hard to know why the F-35 Block 4 upgrade's cost—now $16.5 billion and rising—is going up because it is mixed with the rest of the program, the Government Accountability Office said in a new report.
Congress should direct the Pentagon to break out the F-35’s propulsion upgrade from the rest of the program to better to track its scope, schedule, and cost, the Government Accountability Office urged in a new May 30 report. Meanwhile, engine-maker Pratt & Whitney added its ...
Lockheed Martin is again delivering F-35s after a three-month hiatus, following a back-to-flight approval on March 8. Investigators continue to plumb the cause of a Dec. 14, 2022 crash and implement a fix to an issue with the F135 engine. The first aircraft delivered after ...
Lockheed Martin restarted flying operations at its Fort Worth, Texas, facilities March 6, paving the way for deliveries of F-35s to resume after a nearly three-month hiatus. It's not yet clear when the first new F-35 of 2023 will be delivered.
The entire F-35 fleet is slated to get the retrofit engine maker Pratt & Whitney has identified to mitigate the problem that led to suspended deliveries and flight restrictions for some aircraft for nearly two months—a move that will affect hundreds of fighters globally. The decision ...
A month after F-35 fighter deliveries were halted pending an investigation into a Dec. 14 crash, Pratt & Whitney said it has a fix in hand that will allow deliveries to resume by the end of February. The problem had to do with harmonic resonance, ...
Northrop Grumman has revealed that it is developing a new radar for the F-35 fighter, called the AN/APG-85. The new radar will be installed on some F-35s in Lot 17, options for which were set by Lockheed Martin and the Joint Program Office last week. ...
The first F-35A fitted with the Tech Refresh 3 update flew Jan. 6 from Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., the Joint Program Office announced. The TR-3 suite of more powerful processors and memory is the enabling upgrade on which most of the planned F-35 Block ...
