A delivery hold on F-35 fighters is hurting the Air Force, denying it the operational advantages it needs while causing it to spend money on extending older fighters, Secretary Frank Kendall said.
Tech Refresh 3
“The year 2024 will stand as a transformative year for modernizing the U.S. Air Force’s fighter force. Bottom line: the service needs to reset fast. That is why it was welcome news when Lockheed Martin recently announced the Tech Refresh 3/Block 4 variant of its ...
Lockheed Martin CEO Jim Taiclet thinks completing flight testing of the F-35 Tech Refresh-3 by the middle of 2024 is "manageable," saying the complex changes are taking time because the technologies are comparable to those in driverless cars and autonomous aircraft.
More delay may be in store for the TR-3 update of the F-35 fighter, program executive officer Lt. Gen. Michael Schmidt told Air & Space Forces Magazine. Test resources, software lab capacity, and too much concurrency have put the effort at least two years behind ...
The first F-35s with the Tech Refresh-3 upgrade—largely a processor upgrade upon which the Block 4 configuration of the fighter will ride—will be delivered before the middle of next year, a Lockheed Martin spokesperson said Sept. 6. But that will have an impact on Air ...
WORLD: Readiness: Safety pause over, B-2 flies; New bill to lock in Guard Fighter Squadrons; DARPA's X-65 aircraft.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) thinks the time has come to break this behemoth into more manageable chunks.
Lockheed Martin won’t make its goal of 156 F-35s in 2023 due to engine delivery delays and continuing development and testing of the Tech Refresh 3 update, which underwrites the Block 4 upgrade. However the company expects a Performance-Based Logistics Contract by the end of ...
BAE Systems has received a $491 million F-35 electronic warfare suite production contract from Lockheed Martin to outfit Block 4 jets in 2024. Program director Lt. Gen. Michael Schmidt says the Tech Refresh 3 that will underwrite the upgraded EW will be ready by then.
The first F-35A fitted with the Tech Refresh 3 update flew Jan. 6 from Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., the Joint Program Office announced. The TR-3 suite of more powerful processors and memory is the enabling upgrade on which most of the planned F-35 Block ...
BAE Systems will upgrade the F-35’s electronic warfare system for the jet’s Block 4 upgrade under a $493 million contract awarded by Lockheed Martin, BAE systems said Dec. 15. The new system will go into F-35 production starting with Lot 17 in 2024.
Despite solid combat performance, the F-35’s high maintenance costs and ongoing parts supply problems continue to be a drag on the fifth-generation fighter aircraft, giving critics ammunition as Congress readies to receive the Biden administration’s first budget. Lockheed Martin is delivering F-35s at a rate ...
