The F-35 has problems, but its operational success and critical role in future conflicts outweigh them, said Rep. Anthony Brown during the McAleese FY2022 Defense Programs Conference on May 12. He urged that the services' 2022 F-35 request—as well as any congressional adds—be supported by ...
Heidi Shyu, former army acquisition chief in the Obama administration, is President Joe Biden's nominee for the top Pentagon technology job—undersecretary of defense for research and engineering. Shyu had a long career with Raytheon, specializing in radar, other sensors, and unmanned aircraft. She was born ...
The F-35's program director promised Congress an F-35 sustainment strategy this summer, but said it's unlikely he'll achieve the elusive goal of $25,000 cost per flying hour by 2025. Negotiating three one-year sustainment deals is a "carrot" to get a better deal from Lockheed Martin ...
House Armed Services leaders say they'll move to block adding more F-35s than requested in the fiscal 2022 budget, in hopes of letting the overtaxed sustainment system for the fighter “catch up” to the fleet already in place. Without action on sustainment costs, the Air ...
The Air Force’s tanker presence in the Arctic will grow, with four more KC-135s heading to a new Active component at Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska. The KC-135s and up to 220 Active duty Airmen will head to the 168th Wing at Eielson, with aircraft ...
Full-rate production of the F-35 and delivery of the Block 4 upgrade will keep slipping until the simulator is fixed and the Pentagon sets some realistic timetables for software development, the Government Accountability Office reported on March 18. It recommended better automatic tools for assessing ...
A Pentagon declaration that the F-35's initial development is complete is still months away, but even when it comes, it won't trigger a surge in production of the fighter. “I don’t think you’ll see a large deviation” in production when full-rate is declared, according to ...
Former Air Force acquisition chief Will Roper's transformational ideas on how to buy new systems will stay on track without him, senior service officials said Feb. 24. Digital engineering, agile software development, and open architectures will play a part in all new systems. But sticking ...
After years of Lot-over-Lot price reductions on the F-35, it will be hard to drive them much lower in the next negotiation, Greg Ulmer, Lockheed Martin executive vice president for aeronautics, told defense writers on Feb. 19. Ulmer said the next three lots will include ...
The Biden administration is continuing its predecessor’s policy of excluding Turkey from the international F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby indicated Feb. 5. Pentagon officials kicked Turkey, a NATO ally, out of the F-35 coalition because it bought the S-400 air defense ...
Congressional defense committees are moving forward on their work in 2021 with the addition of a few new faces and subcommittees. Senate leadership has hammered out the details of an organizing resolution that dictates how the evenly divided chamber will operate, opening the door for ...
Lockheed Martin and the Pentagon are negotiating the next three lots of F-35 production, expecting a contract by the end of the fiscal year, the Joint Program Office reported. The negotiating strategy calls for a “base year” contract followed by two options, likely to allow ...