The U.S. military is once again accepting deliveries of the newest F-35 Joint Strike Fighters from Lockheed Martin after a yearlong halt caused by problems with the fighters’ upgrades.
The first two F-35As loaded with a “truncated,” or partial, version of the Technology Refresh 3 upgrade software were delivered to the United States Air Force. One went to the Air National Guard’s 187th Fighter Wing at Dannelly Field, Alabama, the JPO said, and the other went to Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada.
But the lengthy delay in delivering F-35s loaded with TR-3, and the fact that they won’t be able to fly combat missions until 2025, has had ripple effects on the Air Force’s basing of the jets in Europe.
The TR-3 upgrades to the F-35 include better displays, computer memory and processing power. They are necessary to lay the groundwork for a broader F-35 modernization known as Block 4, which will include the ability to carry more weapons, better identify targets, and improve its electronic-warfare capabilities.
However, the TR-3 effort has been hampered by software problems, as well as some delays in hardware production. Lockheed Martin was originally supposed to have TR-3 ready in April 2023. But by July 2023, when the first jets earmarked for TR-3 began rolling off the line in Fort Worth, Texas, the upgrades were still incomplete. The government refused to accept deliveries of these jets, and a backlog of undelivered jets began to grow.
Lockheed Martin and the JPO developed an approach to finish an interim version of the TR-3 software that worked "well enough" to perform some training missions and conduct the test flights necessary for the government to accept planes.
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