Aircraft

The House Appropriations Committee is ratcheting up oversight of the Air Force's effort to house three F-35 Joint Strike Fighter squadrons at Tyndall Air Force Base, FL.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers is urging the leaders of the House Armed Services Committee and the House Appropriations defense subcommittee to add eight C-130J aircraft above what the Air Force and Navy requested in fiscal year 2020.

The head of the Pentagon's cost assessment office and the F-35 program executive officer said today the program isn't likely to meet an Office of the Secretary of Defense target to reduce the A-model jet's cost per flying hour to $25,000 by fiscal year 2025.

A new Government Accountability Office report claims that the F-35 program's faulty planning and allocation of spare parts has contributed to an inability to meet warfighter requirements, and offers eight recommendations to improve the program's supply chain management.

The Pentagon has officially stopped producing an annual aviation inventory and funding plan which had been sent to Congress after delivery of the president's budget for nearly a decade, denying defense aviation wonks a key resource in scrutinizing the U.S. military's long-term investment about the approximately 14,000 aircraft flown and operated by the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps.

An Air Force effort to expedite aviator training using next-generation technology has expanded in its second iteration to include remotely piloted aircraft and a partnership with NASA, according to the program's lead.

Acting Defense Secretary Pat Shanahan has directed Pentagon acquisition chief Ellen Lord to begin planning for alternative supply options for Turkish-made F-35 Joint Strike Fighter parts in the event Turkey remains suspended from the program or is expelled for its purchase of the Russian S-400 missile defense system, according to a defense official.

The unit cost of the F-35A could go as low as $75 million in Lot 14 of low-rate initial production if the program can improve supply chain and production line performance, the head of the program recently told Inside Defense.

If Turkey were removed from the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter supply chain, the program office expects there would be a slowdown of parts to the three production lines within three months time, resulting in between 50 and 75 aircraft being delivered late over a two-year period.