Orlando, February 18, 2010—The Air Force remains “confident and committed to the ultimate success” of the F-35 strike fighter despite the challenges that the program is currently facing, Air Force Secretary Michael Donley said at AFA’s Air Warfare Symposium. Those issues have led the Pentagon to restructure the program as part of its Fiscal 2011 budget proposal, essentially extending the aircraft’s developmental phase by about 13 months and slowing its production ramp-up. (Defense Secretary Robert Gates early this month expected to quickly name a new head for the F-35 program.) Donley said these changes are “the most prudent course of action” after the concurrency of the aircraft’s development and production “finally reached unacceptable levels.”
A provision in the fiscal 2025 defense policy bill will require the Defense Department to include the military occupational specialty of service members who die by suicide in its annual report on suicide deaths, though it remains to be seen how much data the department will actually disclose.