More JSF Test Planes, Software Work Needed

More JSF Test Planes, Software Work Needed
Aviation Week's DTI | Amy Butler | November 24, 2009

The Pentagon is considering adding more flight test assets and software engineers to the $300 billion F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program to avoid major delays to fielding the stealthy, single-engine aircraft.

A Joint Estimate Team, consisting of career cost estimators and program evaluators, has found the Lockheed Martin F-35 program is at least $16 billion over its project cost, and achieving the current flight test schedule is unlikely.

During a roundtable with reporters Nov. 23, Ashton Carter, the Pentagon's acquisition czar, said more flight test aircraft would help to conduct the extensive test program in a "compressed period of time." Another possibility is to add more software engineers, perhaps a shift of them, to "block and tackle" issues with the many lines of code needed to operate the aircraft and its mission systems, Carter says.

Though this would cost more upfront, Carter says what he calls an "investment" upfront would likely produce a more stable program in the long term. Achieving schedule -- or mitigating changes to it -- is key to maintaining interest from international partners planning to buy the aircraft.

Carter says some of these issues must be sorted out in the next "couple of weeks" to lay in the additional funding that would be needed in the Fiscal 2011 budget.


Rest of article about this $239 million dollar wonder at: http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,206472,00.html?wh=wh