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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsF-35 software overrun with bugs, DoD testing chief warns
The F-35's flight plan appears to have delays written all over it. A previously unreleased memo from Michael Gilmore, the Department of Defense's director for Operational Test and Evaluation (OT&E), details a list of problems that will likely hold up the testing of the final configuration of the aircraftand will mean the "Block 2B" aircraft now being delivered to the Marine Corps soon will continue to be full of software bugs for years to come. But officials with the F-35's Joint Program Office (JPO) have downplayed the seriousness of Gilmore's concerns, with one military member of the office taking to the Facebook page of a defense publication to call the memo "whining."
The concerns center largely on testing of software componentsmany of which the JPO has deferred to keep the program close to its schedule, and which JPO leadership has suggested would be a waste of time and money to fix nowsince they are in interim releases of the F-35's systems and an entirely new set of software will be completed for the final version of the F-35. But with the Marine Corps and Air Force scheduled to fly as many as five F-35A and F-35B aircraft at the Farnborough International Air Show this summer, and production of the aircraft ramping up, so much uncertainty about the software could lead to even more complications down the roadparticularly as weapons systems are added to the aircraft.
"The current 'official schedule' to complete full development and testing of all Block 3F capabilities by 31 July 31, 2017 is not realistic," Gilmore wrote in the memo dated from December, which was first obtained by Aviation Week. Making that schedule would require dropping "a significant number of currently planned test points, tripling the rate at which weapons delivery events have historically been conducted, and deferring resolution of significant operational deficiencies to Block 4"a software upgrade the aircraft won't see until at least 2021.
Of particular concern to Gilmore was the F-35's "Autonomic Logistics Information System" (ALIS), which he said "continues to struggle in development with deferred requirements, late and incomplete deliveries, high manpower requirements, multiple deficiencies requiring work-arounds, and a complex architecture with likely (but largely untested) cyber deficiencies." ALIS is a system that spans from the aircraft itself to the entire supply chain for its maintenance and repair parts, and includes portable computing gear required to check if the right parts are installed properly before flight. The software is still a work in progress, and testing of potential security vulnerabilitieswhich could potentially keep aircraft from being able to take offhas largely been deferred for now while Lockheed Martin and the JPO focus on getting the software to actually work as intended.
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http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/01/f-35-software-overrun-with-bugs-dod-testing-chief-warns/
daleanime
(17,796 posts)to think of all the good that could have been done with the money that was wasted.
Bigmack
(8,020 posts)Sen. Walter Sobchak
(8,692 posts)He thinks the only thing that can save the F-35 is implementing Chinese defense contract management techniques, specifically executing the project management military and contractor for corruption.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)hunter
(38,334 posts)... electric cars, reusable spaceships, all sorts of renewable energy projects, making fantastic movies, restoring infrastructure... and then imagine working on that turkey.
It's a job, I guess, but who wants to be a cog in system so utterly corrupt and wasteful?
For example, the people in Flint Michigan need a water system that won't poison them, yet we are spending billions on this???
lpbk2713
(42,769 posts)and the F-35 will go down in history as the Boondoggle.
lovuian
(19,362 posts)labor instead of using American labor is going to haunt the military establishment
Sen. Walter Sobchak
(8,692 posts)This thing is a flying soda machine,
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)Anyone who has used a Swiss Army Knife to try and do anything with knows they will do a lot of thing badly and with great effort.