F-35 Software Problems Continue

We’ve previously noted that software has become the leading cause of schedule delays and cost overruns and we cited the F-35 program’s attempt to implement the Technology Refresh (TR-3) leading to Block 4 upgrades (see, “F-35 Software Case Study” and “The Heartbreak of Software”) without which the F-35 cannot achieve full combat capability.
 
About a year ago, the Pentagon put a freeze on deliveries of new F-35s pending fixes for the TR-3 implementation.  F-35s have been piling up in warehouses awaiting a resolution of the software issues.
 
Honestly, the freeze on deliveries has been more symbolic than effective since the Pentagon has continued payments for the new aircraft with just a $7M withholding per aircraft.[1]  That means that Lockheed has still been getting around 91% of the contract price for aircraft that don’t meet spec and can’t be delivered.  That’s not a bad deal if you can get it!
 
Financial aspects aside, I’m not sure any of us fully appreciate just how badly broken the software side of things are in the F-35 program.  The Pentagon has just caved to various pressures and announced that the delivery freeze has been lifted despite the software problem remaining unresolved.  Hmm …
 

Bowing to operational demands, the Pentagon has lifted a year-long freeze on accepting new F-35 stealth fighters — even though the problem that prompted the standstill has not been fully resolved.[1]
 
Persistent problems with TR-3 prompted officials to eventually capitulate to an interim software fix …[1]

 
Read this next quote slowly and carefully and fully grasp the meaning and implications.
 

… jets will be delivered with interim software that facilitates training, but a second software drop that enables combat capabilities likely won’t be available for at least another year.[1]

That’s right.  We’re delivering training jets but not fully combat capable jets.  We’re decades into this program, have built a thousand aircraft, and still don’t have a fully combat capable aircraft.  Someone should face a firing squad for this.
 
The purpose of this post is not to simply beat on the F-35 program.  Instead, I’d like to highlight a couple of points that this development hammers home for us.
 
Software – As we’ve noted, software has become the main obstacle to successful programs.  We’ve already stated that we need to change the way we treat software and make it its own program instead of just an afterthought for the hardware.  This latest incident just hammers that point home.  Our frontline combat aircraft, the F-35, is not yet fully combat capable due to continuing software problems because the software was treated as an afterthought. 
 
For acquisition programs, our focus has to be software, software, software.
 
SOFTWARE, SOFTWARE, SOFTWARE !
 
Phased Delivery – The incompetent, lazy method of running an acquisition program is to use some sort of incomplete, so-called ‘phased’ delivery where the product is delivered incomplete, to be finished over subsequent years of development.  Of course, this never works out.  The F-35, for example, has yet to achieve full combat capability and we’ve built some thousand aircraft, none of them fully combat capable.  That’s criminal and leads to endless upgrades which add to the cost of the aircraft.  That $80M aircraft becomes a $100M+ aircraft after all the upgrades are included. 
 
Further, by all accounts, we’ve produced hundreds of F-35 orphans which, due to concurrency, will never be brought up to standard and are, essentially, throwaways.  Again, that’s criminal.  This half-assed F-35 production program just hammers home the folly of any kind of phased delivery program.
 
We have to adopt a philosophy of the product, the whole product, and nothing but the whole product or don’t bother building it.
 
Contracts – The final point that this incident hammers home is the unmitigated stupidity of a contract that does not specify and demand delivery of a fully capable product in order to get paid a single penny.  You wouldn’t make a partial payment on an incomplete automobile, would you?  So why are we paying for incomplete aircraft (or ships or anything)?  Again, we need to bring back firing squads on a regular basis.
 
 
Inescapable Conclusion
 
Our acquisition program methodologies are badly broken and our military leadership is 100% complicit to the point of dereliction of duty and criminal fraud.  We have got to start learning lessons from our endless string of failures.  Congress needs to start firing admirals.  Accountability is the only way people as stupid as our military leaders will ever learn a lesson.
 
 
 
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[1]Breaking Defense, “F-35 deliveries to resume next week, despite incomplete upgrade”, Michael Marrow and Valerie Insinna, 11-Jul-2024,
https://breakingdefense.com/2024/07/f-35-deliveries-to-resume-next-week-despite-incomplete-upgrade/