By: Valerie Insinna
A quality control issue at Lockheed Martin stopped F-35 deliveries for a month, but even more time will be needed to roll out a fix to impacted jets across the fleet.
When corrosion was found in several fastener holes under the fuselage panels of a F-35A undergoing maintenance at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, the F-35 joint program office suspended deliveries of the aircraft to give it and Lockheed time to analyze the issue, a Lockheed spokesman said in a statement. That interruption lasted from Sept. 21 to Oct. 20.
The investigation found that Lockheed had not been applying the required primer, which prevents corrosion, to the fastener holes on F-35 substructures during the production process.
https://www.defensenews.com/air/2017/11/01/minor-quality-control-issue-creates-new-problem-for-f-35-enterprise/
