Entire F-35 Fleet to Get Fix for Engine Vibration Issue
March 2, 2023 | By Greg Hadley and John A. Tirpak
The entire F-35 fleet is slated to get a retrofit its engine manufacturer and the U.S. military say will fix a problem that halted deliveries of the jet for two months. Engine maker Pratt & Whitney has identified the solution, but the move will affect hundreds of fighters globally.
The decision to make the fix to every fighter in the fleet comes even as both the F-35 Joint Program Office and Pratt say only a “small number” of fighters were actually affected by the problem of “harmonic resonance.”
The JPO confirmed the retrofits to Air & Space Forces Magazine in a March 2 statement, days after Pratt & Whitney officials told reporters they had identified a fix for the vibration issue identified after an F-35B crash at Lockheed Martin’s Fort Worth, Texas, facility in December.
The crash, in which the aircraft suddenly pitched forward during a vertical descent and struck the runway, had far-reaching implications as the F-35 JPO stopped accepting deliveries of both the F-35 and its F135 engine and issued flight restrictions for some aircraft, though both the Air Force and the JPO repeatedly declined to specify how many.
https://www.airandspaceforces.com/entire-f-35-fleet-to-get-fix-for-engine-vibration-issue/
