https://www.defensenews.com/air/2024...til-next-year/
First upgraded F-35s won’t be ready for combat until next year
The first F-35s to be delivered with a set of
upgrades known as Technology Refresh 3 will initially be used for training flights, but will not be ready for combat until 2025, Lockheed Martin said in an earnings call Tuesday.
Lockheed chief executive Jim Taiclet told investors the company is focused on fully implementing TR-3 — a set of upgrades to the F-35′s software and hardware, including better displays, computer memory and contracting power — and has made progress in recent months.
But TR-3 is already a year overdue, and is not likely to be ready until at least the third quarter of 2024. Lockheed Martin is still building F-35s intended to have TR-3, but since last summer the government has refused to accept delivery of those jets without the upgrades.….
The F-35 Joint Program Office
confirmed to Defense News in November it was considering a strategy of loading interim versions of the TR-3 software into the jet as a way to speed delivery before the upgrades are completely done.
Schmidt told lawmakers the “truncated” software would lack some combat capabilities at first. The “first realistic chance” at getting an F-35 delivered with a partial version of TR-3 will be this July, he said, though some experts think August or September may be more realistic….
And the significant advancements in the F-35′s capabilities — the jet is intended to receive a subsequent upgrade called Block 4 that will add even more abilities — have proved to be challenging, Taiclet said.
“What we’ve run into on TR-3 is, the level of complexity and executing a [capability] increase that’s pretty dramatic,” Taiclet said. “We are wringing out all of the software through all of the new hardware, and integrating into all of the aircraft’s other systems, and that’s taken longer than our team predicted.”….