Stealth Nightmare: Is the F-35 Unable to Fight?

Dan Grazier

Security,

Another setback for the F-35? 

Behler writes that operational testing cannot begin until the program updates versions of the F-35’s operating software, mission-data files, Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS), and testing range infrastructure software.

The troubled $1.5 trillion F-35 program is not ready to begin the critical combat-testing phase, the Pentagon’s testing director said in a previously undisclosed August memo obtained by the Center for Defense Information at the Project On Government Oversight (POGO). That decision marks another setback in the development of the Pentagon’s largest acquisition program.

The memo, issued on August 24, 2018, says the program has not met the necessary entry criteria to begin the crucial combat-testing phase called Initial Operational Test and Evaluation (IOT&E). It comes on the heels of the revelation, reported first by POGO, that program officials have been trying to make it appear as though the program has completed the development phase, by altering paperwork to reclassify potentially life-threatening design flaws to give the appearance of progress rather than actually fixing them.

(This first appeared several months ago.)

IOT&E is the last legal hurdle an acquisition program must surmount before it can enter full-rate production. Per federal law, this process cannot begin until the director of operational test and evaluation approves in writing that the program has met all the necessary criteria to execute the agreed-upon testing program.

Robert Behler, the director of operational test and evaluation, is delaying IOT&E until the program addresses several software issues. Behler writes that operational testing cannot begin until the program updates versions of the F-35’s operating software, mission-data files, Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS), and testing range infrastructure software.