Crucial Combat Tests on F-35 Jets Slip Further on Covid-19 Delay
Crucial Combat Tests on F-35 Jets Slip Further on Covid-19 Delay
(Bloomberg) -- A phase of rigorous combat testing meant to evaluate how well the next-generation F-35 jet will fare against sophisticated Russian, Chinese and Iranian air defense threats has slipped five more months due to Covid-19-related delays.
Versions of Lockheed Martin Corp.’s F-35 have flown hundreds of aerial exercises, deployed for overseas operations by the Marines and Air Force and attacked Taliban targets in Afghanistan. Despite all that, the $398 billion fighter program hasn’t been evaluated against the most stressing threats in simulators meant to replicate and then go beyond what’s likely to occur in real-world flying.
A one-month, 64-sortie simulator exercise will be the capstone of a testing regime required by law before Lockheed can proceed into a full-rate production phase and assure customers from South Korea to Poland that the plane is effective and can be maintained. It’s also a key hurdle to clear before the Pentagon can buy the bulk of the aircraft destined for the U.S. military.
Chief Pentagon tester Robert Behler told House Armed Services Committee lawmakers in a November hearing that he thought the one-month simulation event would occur in July. That was before the Covid-19 pandemic upended the ongoing combat testing.
The latest delay means the program won’t complete all its combat testing until year’s end. A decision to move the program into full-production -- the most important phase in the life of a weapons systems and typically the most lucrative for a contractor-- would probably be stalled beyond a March 2021 target.
The test program has lurched ahead after overcoming a range of software, quality and manufacturing and support issues. In October, Ellen Lord, the under secretary of defense for acquisition, delayed the full-production decision from December 2019 to between September 2020 and March 2021, citing the simulation delays.
Currently the program “is still working to complete development, integration, testing and verification, validation and accreditation of the F-35 and other required” software models, “including aircraft and surface-to-air threat systems,” Behler spokeswoman Jessica Maxwell said in a statement.
“These activities have been hampered by COVID-19,” but personnel have “implemented several COVID-19 risk mitigations, enabling a return to nearly full operations,” she said.
F-35 program office spokeswoman Brandi Schiff agreed that “progress has been hampered by COVID-19” but said that the simulations “are intended to start and complete in December 2020.”
In the combat testing phase to come, an F-35 pilot will fly in a fully functioning simulator with a 360-degree view that depicts air and ground threats and incorporates allied aircraft as well.
Once all the testing is complete, it will take an additional two to three months to “transfer and analyze the data, and then draft” the final report for delivery to Pentagon leaders and Congress, Maxwell said. Although the majority of the report will be classified, an unclassified summary may be released, she added.
Jet Deliveries
When asked what impact the new delay will have on the full-production decision schedule, Lord’s office said in a statement that no decision has been made to delay it “beyond the threshold date in March 2021.” The office “is closely monitoring the progress of all related activities,” according to the statement.
The simulator was supposed to be ready three years ago but “since then, the program has struggled to develop the complex software and functionality needed to complete” it, the Government Accountability Office said in its annual program report in April. GAO office director Jon Ludwigson said the announced delay “is not surprising given the other delays that have been noted” in prior reports.
In the meantime, more than 555 of a potential 3,200 F-35s for the U.S. and international allies already have been delivered.
©2020 Bloomberg L.P.