Technical problems that have emerged with the F-35 strike fighter—a jittery helmet display, a fuel-dump issue, and a redesigned arrestor hook, among others—”do not keep me up at night,” said Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan, F-35 program executive officer. “I have confidence” that program engineers will resolve these issues; it’s just that the solutions are not coming quickly, said Bogdan at an Aviation Week-sponsored conference in Arlington, Va., on March 5. Bogdan said these issues are what flight testing is intended to reveal; but after 12 years, he understands that people are impatient. “Only one-third of flight test is complete,” he said. “You gotta figure we’ll find things” as testing continues, he said. However, the program has already learned a lot about “the great sin” of the program: concurrency, said Bogdan. It’s most expensive to rework an aircraft already delivered; it’s significantly less costly to correct one still on the production line, he said. The vast majority of rework-related issues have to do with items discovered during durability testing of the jet, he said. (For more from Bogdan, see The Half-Full F-35 Glass and It’s Not a Trillion-Dollar F-35, and Let the Competition Begin.)
Airman 1st Class Marcus White-Allen concocted a story to cover up that he fired his M18 9mm pistol into Airman Braden Lovan’s chest, killing him on July 20, two Airmen from F.E. Warren Air Force Base, Wyo., testified during separate courts martial proceedings on Oct. 30-31.
