Pentagon Can’t Say When Lockheed F-35 Will Finish Combat Testing
By Anthony Capaccio
November 5, 2021, 11:00 AM EDT
Pentagon officials still haven’t set a date for Lockheed Martin Corp.’s F-35, the costliest U.S. weapons system, to complete the final 42% of mission testing to determine whether it’s up to countering the top Russian and Chinese air defenses and fighters.
The F-35 was supposed to fly one month of testing in a highly advanced simulator last December, the latest delay since the original goal of 2017. But that was postponed yet again by unresolved technical problems in the “Joint Simulation Environment” test facility, compounded by the Covid pandemic. Then, the Pentagon’s office of operational testing estimated in January that the exercise would commence midyear or by this December.
Defense Department acquisition, legal and testing officials didn’t arrive at a new date when they met last month to review progress of software and verification procedures needed to validate that the simulation of 64 sorties will replicate real-world encounters.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-11-05/pentagon-can-t-say-when-lockheed-f-35-will-finish-combat-testing?utm_source=google&utm_medium=bd&cmpId=google&sref=IYQ5mP1s
