F-35, all the worries of Lockheed Martin
According to Bloomberg, Lockheed Martin risks having $800 million in payments withheld due to new software for the F-35. The company's CEO, Jim Taiclet, said the delays in upgrading the TR-3 for the Joint Strike Fighter stem from hardware delays, which have compressed the software testing schedule.
Usual trouble for Lockheed Martin with the F-35, fifth generation fighter and the defense giant's largest program.
The Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program recently took a hit due to delays with its Tech Refresh 3 (TR-3) upgrade, which provides features such as improved processing power to facilitate a suite of new capabilities known as Blocking 4.
The US Department of Defense, which is the largest F-35 customer, has stopped accepting deliveries of new aircraft in the TR-3 configuration until the system is certified.
As such, the Bethesda, Maryland-based defense giant could face a payment delay of about $800 million due to the issue, Bloomberg reported, as the F-35s languish in storage until the program can to resolve persistent software problems. Due to the delays, the company reduced its 2023 F-35 delivery forecast to 97 fighters.
Lockheed CEO Jim Taiclet said at last week's conference that the TR-3's problems can be traced to delayed hardware deliveries, as the company highlighted in an earlier statement . Lockheed Martin has maintained that it will not complete flight testing and certification on the series of F-35 upgrades known as Technical Refresh-3 (TR-3) until the second quarter of 2024.
All the details.
PAYMENTS WITHHELD BY THE PENTAGON
According to Bloomberg , Lockheed Martin could see more than $800 million in payments withheld until next June, which is until it wins approval for the software that powers its most advanced version of the F-35, based on data recently disclosed delivery times.
The major US defense contractor is set to finish production of about 52 upgraded TR-3 model fighter planes by December 31 and about 12 per month thereafter, or another 72 by June 30, for a total of 124 aircraft , according to data released Monday by Russ Goemaere, Pentagon spokesman on the F-35.
The Pentagon will withhold $7 million per plane until the new software is validated because the planes will be stored until then. With 124 jets, that's $868 million. Last month, the Defense Department withheld $7 million on each of the first four upgraded F-35s.
WHAT LOCKHEED MARTIN CEO SAID ABOUT TR-3 DELAYS FOR F-35s
TR-3 is the critical upgrade to the F-35's computer processing electronics.
“The history of Tech Refresh 3 has been characterized by late hardware deliveries. This is a hardware replacement for the core processor, which is the brain of the aircraft, the data storage device and the entire panoramic cockpit,” Taiclet said.
“With that will come a major software update, but the fact that much of the hardware was late, and some subcomponents of the hardware were also late, dramatically compressed the software integration testing program. And both the government and the industry wanted to try to maintain as much of the original program as possible. And we're not able to do that, just because the compression is too aggressive."
However, Taiclet said that with the knowledge gained from the completed tests, “we should be able to achieve the goal we stated in our statement last week.” In fact, Lockheed said in a statement that it expects to deliver 97 F-35s this year, down from its previous forecast of 100-120 jets.
In a roundtable discussion with reporters Tuesday, Air Force Gen. Mark Kelly described the current TR-3 program as “high risk,” Breaking Defense reports . Kelly heads the Air Force's Air Combat Command, which employs the F-35.
“When you look at the number of actions that need to take place, in terms of depleting the TR-3 that need to be done between now and then, it's doable. Possible and probable are nowhere to be found – only in the dictionary are these two words close to each other,” he said.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/smartcity/f-35-tutti-i-grattacapi-di-lockheed-martin/ on Tue, 19 Sep 2023 05:34:10 +0000.