Aviation Week has published a 48-page report from Michael Gilmore, the Pentagon's Director of Operational Test and Evaluation, which casts serious doubts on whether the Marines' current version of the F-35, the Block 2B, is capable of entering combat on it own.

Writes Gilmore: "If in an opposed combat scenario, the F-35 Block 2B aircraft would need to avoid threat engagement and would require augmentation by other friendly forces."

He lists off some of the problems facing that the current version of the F-35 Block 2B, including the fact that the F-35 is unable to deploy weapons or defensive countermeasures while flying at its maximum speed—pilots will need to slow down from the F-35's max speed of Mach 1.6 to Mach 1.2 or less in order to fire.

Software bugs continue to plague the fighter as well, with 11 out of 12 weapons tested during Block 2B evaluation severely hampered. The software malfunctions, Gilmore writes, "required intervention by the developmental test control team to overcome system deficiencies and ensure a successful event (i.e., acquire and identify the target and engage it with a weapon)."

More troubling are the overheating issues, which have been known about for years and have yet to be fixed. The F-35's weapons bay can overheat if if the plane is maintaining high speeds at an altitude of under 25,000 feet and an atmospheric temperature 90° F or greater. The trouble occurs if the plane's weapon day doors are closed for upwards of 10 minutes, and opening the bay doors negates the F-35s stealth capabilities. The F-35 is also unable to pull more than 3.8 Gs with a fully loaded fuel tank, due to known problems with with the fuel tank siphon. The plane can only pull its maximum of 7 Gs once its fuel tanks are at least 45 percent empty.

According to Gilmore, the root of many of these problems is that each bit of the F-35 has been built with with an eye towards passing individual tests instead of "combat readiness." Gilmore also writes that the F-35 testing team put its thumb on the scale during tests. According to the Gilmore, testing operators made allowances for faults during some tests. "Obviously," states the report, "none of this test team intervention would be possible in combat."

Furthermore, Gilmore states that the current timeline for development the further refined F-35 Block 3F—which would be the version ready for export and for use in the Navy—is unrealistic. A planned simulator was delayed and eventually scrapped, which means pilots will either need to wait for a new simulator, or undergo expensive live testing instead. Per Gilmore, the current plan to begin full-scale testing to the ready-for-market version of the F-35 must be pushed back from August 2017 to August 2018.

Lt. Gen. Chris Bogdan, the F-35 program's executive officer, issued an official response, defending the plane and efforts made by the team. "Although [the Pentagon's] report is factually accurate," he writes, "it does not fully address program efforts to resolve known technical challenges and schedule risks. It is the F-35 Joint Program Office's responsibility to find developmental issues, resolve them and execute with the time and budget we have been given."

Source: Aviation Week (registration required)

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