The military will begin flight tests next week on the F-35 to determine if software issues are fixed, an official told Congress on Wednesday.
Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan, the head of the F-35 program, said a “stability” issue with sensors in the plane is causing some sensors to reset midflight. The communication between the radar and the plane’s main computers is mistimed and as timing delays build up, the radar eventually just shuts off.
“That is not good. We are experiencing that kind of problem about once every four hours of flight time. We need the system to be much more stable than that,” Bogdan said at a House Armed Services Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces hearing.
The radar does recover, but Bogdan said it takes “a few minutes” for it to come back online.
The tri-service F-35 is the most expensive weapons program in history. The variant for the Marine Corps was deemed fleet-ready last year, and the Air Force and Navy versions are on their way.
Prime contractor Lockheed Martin has developed a number of fixes that will be tested next week, Bogdan said. Within the next month, the service will know whether those fixes work and, as a result, what effect the glitch will have on upcoming milestones for the joint strike fighter.
He said the goal is to get the glitches down to once every eight to 10 hours of flight time, a common glitch rate for aircraft.
Still, any problems while flying in battle is not ideal, especially if the sensor goes out during some type of conflict.
“I don’t know if I’d want to be a pilot and watch the screen go blank,” said Michael Sullivan, the director of acquisition and sourcing management issues at the Governmental Accountability Office.
