F-35 oppdatering

U.S. Military: F-35 Makes Progress Toward Initial Capability

by Bill Carey

 - January 21, 2015, 11:48 AM

An F-35A at Edwards Air Force Base is shown with its systems development and demonstration weapons suite. (Photo: Lockheed Martin)

Senior U.S. military officers in recent pronouncements attested that the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program remains on track to meet upcoming initial operational capability (IOC) dates of the Marine Corps and Air Force versions. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh said his service’s “big challenge” is readying the fighter’s autonomic logistics information system (ALIS) to support its deployment.

In a January 15 briefing at the Pentagon with Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James, Welsh said he is “fairly comfortable” with the status of the F-35A, which the service expects will achieve IOC “as scheduled” between August and December 2016. He was not concerned that the fighter will begin service with version “3i” software and less than the full weapons capability planned for Block 3F software.

“FOC,” or full operational capability “to me, is the key date,” Welsh said. “You get at the airplane, you have initial capability. You continue to develop the capability through new software upgrades, adjustments you find during initial operational test, and then by the time you declare it fully operational capable, that means it now meets the requirement set that you defined,” he added. “That's the ultimate goal.”

The Air Force is now concentrated on the ALIS system, the fighter’s so-called information technology backbonethat will process health and maintenance data from F-35s in flight and distribute it to maintainers on a web-based distributed network. “The big challenge for us is ‘operationalizing’ maintenance for the airplane, making sure theALIS system is capable of supporting deployments, and that's what we're focused on right now,” Welch said. Asked if the service will have enough trained maintainers to support the F-35A at IOC, he responded: “The maintainer issue is not an F-35 program issue. The maintainer issue is an Air Force problem…We have enough people to prioritize this to the point where we will be able to get to IOC.”

The Marine Corps plans to declare IOC of the F-35B in July with Block 2B software, which, according to the F-35 Joint Program Office, provides capability for “basic close air support and interdiction and initial air-to-air and enhanced data link capability” for weapons including the AIM-120 advanced medium range air-to-air missile (AMRAAM), Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) and GBU-12 laser-guided bomb.

In a program update it issued on January 16, manufacturer Lockheed Martin said all three F-35 variants remain on track to achieve full weapons certification. The company said it expects to deliver Block 3F software with full weapons capability during F-35 low-rate initial production Lot 9 in 2017. Among recent milestones the program listed was the first flight on September 9 and the first night flight on September 18 using the fighter’s GenerationIII helmet-mounted display with “3iR4” software. The program conducted three weapons delivery accuracy live-fire events from November 18 to 25, involving two AIM-120s and one JDAM. The events included the first supersonic guided missile launch and the first JDAM release on target coordinates generated from the fighter’s electro-optical targeting system.

“The weapons development program continues to track forward on the plan laid out by the Technical Baseline Review approved in 2010,” stated Lt. Gen. Chris Bogdan, F-35 program executive officer. “All weapons tests needed for Block 2B software, the software the U.S. Marine Corps will use to declare IOC, are complete and will be ready to go for combat capability.”