Further signs of progress.
Will U.S. Navy’s F-35 Be Ready On Time? (Aviation Week Network).
Extract:-
The U.S. Navy’s USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier will be headed to sea loaded with war-ready F-35Cs for the first time in 2021, if all goes according to plan.
But the F-35C carrier variant has a long road ahead before it can kick off its first operational deployment.
The Navy version of Lockheed Martin’s new fighter has made major progress over the last year. The “Rough Raiders” of VFA-125, the “Grim Reapers” of VFA-101 as well as VX-9 recently completed carrier qualifications on the USS Abraham Lincoln, greenlighting the first nine F-35C pilots to take off and land. At NAS Lemoore, California, the “Argonauts” of VFA-147, which will support the 2021 deployment, in February began their transition to the F-35C.
The JPO is working to implement three hardware fixes
The Navy will not declare the F-35C combat-ready until it demonstrates 3F capability during IOT&E
IOC will likely happen in 2019
The Navy will continue working on interoperability, communications and weapons integration
Meanwhile, the Joint Program Office (JPO) has resolved three major deficiencies on the F-35C: a “green glow” that obscures pilots’ vision during nighttime carrier landings; violent vertical oscillations during carrier launches; and overloading of the wings when carrying Raytheon’s AIM-9X air-to-air missiles, the aircraft’s primary dogfighting weapons.