Not Ready: F-35 Needs Upgrades to Meet Full Warfighting Strength

Dave Majumdar

Security,

“That price alone would qualify it as a major defense acquisition program in it own right and it should be managed as such.”

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is voicing opposition to the Pentagon’s plan to manage the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter’s Block 4 upgrade as a continuation of the existing program. The planned upgrade—which is expected to cost more than $3 billion—is large enough to qualify a major defense acquisition program by itself.

“This modernization effort is like a new program with estimated costs of about $3 billion over the next six years,” Michael Sullivan, director of acquisition and sourcing management issues at GAO, told the House Armed Services Committee on March 23. “That price alone would qualify it as a major defense acquisition program in it own right and it should be managed as such.”

That is the only way to ensure that the Block 4 upgrade is subjected to the proper regulatory and management oversight as well as reporting requirements as any other program, Sullivan said. The F-22 Raptor’s upgrade program is managed as a separate major defense acquisition program.

“The F-22 provided precedent for this,” Sullivan noted. “It began its modernization effort as part of the existing baseline program and it eventually established the separate business case and eventually developed into a major acquisition program.”

Indeed, the F-22 upgrade program has all of the hallmarks of a separate program including its Milestone B review to transition into the engineering and manufacturing development (EMD).