Three comments.
1. Another programme timeline that didn't last 2 years. Slippages on schedule. Not worth the paper they're printed on.....
2. At this rate Block 5 won't arrive till after 2035 - if at all.
3. Not being US and competing against their exports, will Meteor be integrated before 2025? And given the current repeated failures to meet deadlines, is 2030 more realistic?
AW&ST:
Opinion: Time To Define The F-35 Upgrade Plan
Two years ago, the Pentagon set initial operational capability (IOC) dates for all three versions of the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). Those dates may be adhered to, but some capabilities may be missing. Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Harrigian, director of the Air Force’s F-35 integration office, said in late May that there are hardware and software items—all unspecified and some classified—that are running late, so the IOC requirement may have to be amended........
The first post-IOC upgrade, Block 4, has changed shape twice in less than two years. The original plan was to roll out numbered block upgrades at two-year intervals. Early in 2014, Air Force Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan, director of the JSF program office, disclosed that Block 4 would be split into Block 4A and 4B, the latter reaching IOC in 2024—so that anything post-Block 4 would have to wait until 2026. Apparently, some customers had a problem with this. A new plan was unveiled this spring, dividing Block 4 into four segments, 4.1 through 4.4. Block 4.1, mostly software, arrives in late 2019, two years earlier than 4A would have done—but it seems likely that it will include overspill from Block 3F. Block 4.4 is due for IOC in mid-2025.
The idea is to “accelerate incremental capabilities,” according to a program document. The Pentagon and its partners have many requirements and desires between now and 2027, and a process has been put in place to prioritize them. Common items take precedence over customer-unique upgrades unless the program’s Joint Executive Steering Board decrees otherwise. Priorities include anti-surface warfare, with the AGM-154C-1 net-enabled version of the Joint Standoff Weapon, and moving-target attack with the laser-guided version of the Joint Direct Attack Munition. Block 4 also includes the B61-12 nuclear bomb. There is a long list of other new weapons: cruise missiles from Norway and Turkey, and Britain’s three-phase Selective Precision Effects At Range (Spear) project. The U.K. wants two new MBDA air-to-air missiles (AAM): Meteor and a new version of the Advanced Short-Range AAM.
But the presentation warns that “weapon integration requests are likely to exceed capacity,” even though budget documents show that the Pentagon plans to spend around $700 million annually on JSF research and development as the original development phase winds down. That does not include follow-on development funds from international partners. That makes Block 4 a $5 billion-plus program, which ought to be enough to cover most upgrade needs. Air Force acquisition chief Bill LaPlante also appears to think the upgrade money could be spent more smartly. He has floated the idea of moving toward open architecture in Block 4, with a view to opening Block 5 to competition. Boeing’s defense boss Chris Chadwick doubts whether that will work. Any incumbent, he believes, should have enough of an advantage to beat challengers in a fair competition.
Consider, too, the history of the F-35’s sibling, the F-22 Raptor. A decade ago, when the F-22 was approaching IOC, the contractor and customer expected that the jet would be modernized quickly. By 2012, the Block 40 Global Strike Enabler was to be in service, with added radar side arrays, powerful electronic attack capabilities and two-way satcoms. But even with $5 billion in R&D over the last decade, none of this has been done. Operational F-22s still cannot communicate, other than by voice radio, with anything except another F-22, and they are only just moving beyond the obsolescent AIM-9M Sidewinder AAM. Early production F-22s are not due to be brought up to fully operational standards until the 2020s.
The F-22 and F-35 have some strong similarities when it comes to upgrades. Both are stealthy, which makes it more difficult to add or replace a radio-frequency or electro-optical aperture. Both have a systems architecture that leans heavily on a central integrated processor, with the subsystems as peripherals. That has its advantages but means a dedicated development program for each sensor upgrade rather than just porting technology from another aircraft. Above all, both have shown a big appetite for regression testing—the process of making sure that a change or fix to one system has not resulted in a failure in another—which has been the biggest drag on F-22 upgrade efforts.........