Lockheed Martin gjenopptar leveringen av F-35 etter et års opphold - Bloomberg

 

Lockheed Set to Resume F-35 Deliveries to Pentagon Next Week

Story by Tony Capaccio

 • 1d • 3 min read

(Bloomberg) -- The Pentagon will take deliveries of F-35 fighter jets again next week instead of continuing to wait for a delayed hardware and software upgrade, a decision that could bring $700 million to manufacturer Lockheed Martin Corp. by the end of the year. 

Officials decided that the Defense Department couldn’t wait any longer for the full TR-3 upgrade to complete testing given that jets were piling up on the tarmac at a Lockheed facility in Texas — where they might suffer weather damage — and pilots weren’t able to train on the aircraft.

Instead, the Pentagon has decided to retrofit the jets later when the new upgrade is fully tested. 

F-35 program manager Lieutenant General Michael Schmidt made the decision to go ahead with orders on July 3 “after extensive coordination with the Services, Joint Strike Fighter Executive Steering Board, pilots, maintainers, and industry,” F-35 spokesman Russell Goemaere said in a statement. “Deliveries will resume in the near future.”