Zitat:Lockheed Martin has hit a huge milestone in F-35 Joint Strike Fighter production. However, that accomplishment, while outstanding, is complicated by the ongoing saga surrounding the development and testing of Tech Refresh-3 (TR-3) hardware configuration. TR-3 underpins the F-35's future capabilities, known collectively as Block 4. Delays with TR-3 mean that F-35s are being parked and not delivered after they are constructed, waiting for these features. So is the case for the 1,000th F-35.

Zitat:Regardless, hitting the 1,000 mark is really an incredible accomplishment for the controversial program that has struggled significantly at times.

As of early January, the F-35 enterprise has amassed over 773,000 flying hours, trained over 2,280 pilots and 15,400 maintainers across 14 flying services around the world, and flown more than 469,000 total sorties. There are now 32 bases and 11 ships hosting or capable of hosting F-35 units. As of now, there are a whopping 17 countries participating in the international Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program.

Zitat:It has taken testers and industry a decade to come up with a flight suit configuration that can keep F-35 pilots alive in biological and chemical warfare environments, and just last week the ensemble flew for the first time.

Zitat:The test event known as ‘Obsidian Iceberg’ has been covered by The War Zone in the past, but this most recent iteration covered two days and brought in nine squadrons and other units from the Marines, Air Force, and Navy to execute a unique set of trials and training events that will have a huge impact on the future of the USMC’s flying forces.

Obsidian Iceberg 23.1 had a focus on supporting F-35 Deep Air Support missions with rearmament and refueling. For deep air support, the new weapons system that VMX-1 has been testing is the GBU-53 Bravo known as the Small Diameter Bomb II (GBU-53B). With the GBU-53B, Marine F-35Bs can carry eight of them internally, maintaining their low observable signature.

Zitat:The 65% availability target is for aircraft that are categorized as mission capable. The services consider an aircraft as mission capable if it can perform at least one of the program’s assigned missions. Such a threshold may be appropriate for a program like the C-17 transport, which has essentially a single mission. For a multi-role program like the F-35, however, a different standard should be used. Because the F-35 is designed to perform many missions, from delivering nuclear weapons to supporting troops on the ground, program officials aren’t even using the right yardstick to measure the aircraft’s performance.

Zitat:https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-24-106909.pdf
F-35 JOINT STRIKE FIGHTER
Program Continues to Encounter Production Issues and Modernization Delays

Zitat:In Polen firmiert die F-35A künftig als "Husarz" – benannt nach der einstigen polnischen Elite-Kavallerie. Ihren ersten Stealth-Husar nahm die polnische Luftwaffe jetzt bei Lockheed Martin in Texas feierlich in Empfang. Polnischen Boden betritt der Jet aber erst 2027.