Senators on Tuesday hammered the F-35 for its scheduling delays and cost overruns, but program officials said major problems are “behind us” and is largely moving forward on its new schedule.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, criticized the program for delivering “no more than a trickle” of aircraft, far below original delivery estimates. At the outset, officials said they would have more than 1,000 F-35s by the end of the fiscal 2016. In reality, Lockheed Martin will have delivered just 179, McCain said.
“The F-35 program’s record of performance has been both a scandal and a tragedy with respect to cost, schedule and performance,” McCain said during a hearing. “It’s a textbook example of why this committee has placed such a high priority on reforming the broken defense acquisition system.”
The F-35 acquisition program has been the largest and most expensive ever undertaken by the Defense Department. Lockheed Martin, combined with a global development system, is building variants for the Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force. Costs have doubled from original estimates, and the jets have also suffered serious problems with their software and helmets that have slowed procurement.
But Pentagon officials said that the F-35’s major problems are all behind it. “The F-35 is no longer a program that keeps me up at night,” said Frank Kendall, undersecretary for acquisition, technology and logistics. “I will be surprised if a major design problem surfaces at this point.”
Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan, the program executive officer for the F-35, spoke specifically to fixes for issues with the plane’s software, which had caused some sensors to reset midflight about once every four hours of flight time.
He said the military is currently completing flights to test proposed solutions that are showing “positive” results that make the issue “two to three times better.”
“By the end of this month, I am encouraged we’ll have enough data to consider this problem an issue closed,” he said.
McCain said that regardless of progress, problems with the F-35 will still likely slow how quickly lawmakers allow the military to retire older aircraft.
“The Congress will not likely allow any more of these legacy aircraft to be retired from service until there is no doubt the F-35 can adequately replace them,” he said.
