Pentagon acquisition boss William LaPlante is optimistic that the pause in new F-35 fighter deliveries will not drag on for long—but the problem does highlight a “constant” issue with the supply chain, he said. The halt in deliveries came after Honeywell, a subcontractor for the ...
Lockheed Martin said it’s “developing mitigation plans” to resume delivering new F-35s to customers. The F-35 Joint Program Office stopped delivery of new F-35s after learning that a material came from China. The material in question is an alloy in a magnet in the F-35’s ...
Lot 15 of the F-35 fighter will include up to 129 aircraft, including 49 F-35As for the Air Force, and cost up to $7.6 billion. The final contract award came less than a month after the F-35 Joint Program Office and Lockheed Martin announced a ...
Air Force Lt. Gen. Michael J. Schmidt took command of the F-35 Joint Program Office on July 5, succeeding Air Force Lt. Gen. Eric Fick, who is retiring. The succession of an Air Force PEO by another—breaking more than 25 years of back-and-forth joint leadership—may ...
The new “Splinter” camouflage on F-35s assigned to aggressor duty at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev., shouldn't negate or interfere with their low observability, meaning they can truly play the role of a stealthy sparring partner for USAF fighters, according to a Nellis spokesperson. The ...
The services may want to pause buying the F-35 fighter until the Block 4 version is available and possibly curtail the program from reaching planned buys, House Armed Services chairman Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) told defense reporters. Meanwhile, lawmakers should take a hard look at ...
The U.S. comptroller general, who oversees the Government Accountability Office, will assess sustainment challenges of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and report back to Congress by March 2023 under a House Armed Services subcommittee markup of the fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act. The readiness ...
The F-35’s troubled sustainment enterprise is getting better but is still falling short of the services’ goals for the program, officials told Congress. And lawmakers are running out of patience. “The message for me—and I hope from my committee, and I know I'm going to ...
As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine drags on and the U.S. and NATO continue to bolster their eastern front, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said he’ll be watching closely to see how the F-35 performs in Europe.
Germany has decided to buy 35 Lockheed Martin F-35 fighters and 15 Eurofighter Typhoons to bolster its air forces, after officials there said they had settled on Boeing F/A-18E/F fighters. The new jets will replace Germany’s fleet of Tornado interdiction/strike aircraft. The F-35s would be ...
The F-35 Joint Program Office’s efforts to revamp the fighter’s troubled sustainment and maintenance enterprise reached a new milestone as the JPO announced the installation of 14 hardware systems for its new Operational Data Integrated Network.
A deal on the next three-lot buy of F-35 fighters is dragging out because Lockheed Martin and the Joint Program Office are struggling to agree on a new cost baseline, affected by inflation, the pandemic and a reduced buy from the military services, company officials ...