Lockheed Martin’s
F-35 is set to begin later this month a long series of operational test and evaluation flights needed to prove the program is ready to enter full-rate production in fiscal year 2020, the Joint Program Office (JPO) confirmed to Aerospace DAILY Dec. 4. The approval ends a 16-month delay to the start of the formal initial operational test and evaluation (IOT&E) program, although the JPO launched a series of “pre-IOT&E” events earlier this year. “Formal (IOT&E) will start later this month,” a JPO spokesman said.
The new timing matches a prediction made nearly two years ago by Michael Gilmore, who was then the military’s director for the office of test and evaluation. In his final report to Congress in January 2017, Gilmore predicted that IOT&E would not begin until the F-35 meets unspecified readiness criteria at the end of 2018. At the time, IOT&E was scheduled to start in August 2017.
Until August 2018, the JPO had set Sept. 15 as the target for entering IOT&E. But Gilmore’s successor, Robert Behler, decided on Aug. 24 that formal testing wouldn’t start until Lockheed delivered a new software block dubbed “30R02.” That memo, which was disclosed by the Project on Government Oversight, said the software should be delivered by late November.
The newly approved timeline means a compressed schedule to complete IOT&E and fix any discrepancies before a planned full-rate production decision by the end of 2019.
The F-35 has been declared operated since 2015 and deployed in combat by the
Israeli Air Force and the U.S.
Marine Corps, but its operational effectiveness and suitability has not yet been thoroughly vetted by the military’s operational test community. The tests will focus on a wide range of criteria, including previous reports by Behler’s office about deficiencies with deploying weapons, such as the
Raytheon AIM-120 Amraam.