Although flight testing on the F-35 strike fighter ramped up “significantly” in Fiscal 2010, the F-35 program’s overall progress continues to lag, said Michael Sullivan, director of acquisition and sourcing management at the Government Accountability Office. “Software development—essential for achieving about 80 percent of [F-35] functionality—is significantly behind schedule as [the program] enters its most challenging phase,” Sullivan told members of the House Armed Services Committee’s tactical air and land forces panel Tuesday. Further, only four percent of the F-35’s capabilities have been fully verified through flight tests and/or lab results, he said. Sullivan characterized the Pentagon’s F-35 restructure as “positive, substantial actions that should lead to more achievable and predictable outcomes.” However, as a result, the aircraft’s development “is now estimated at $56.4 billion to complete in 2018, a 26 percent cost increase and a five-year schedule slip,” he said. (Sullivan’s prepared remarks)
Hickham Air Force Base in Hawaii is trialing novel energy technology to provide electrical power and hydrogen fuel in the kind of isolated and austere outposts the Air Force will need in the Pacific theater for its new Agile Combat Employment way of warfare.