The Defense Department’s chief weapons tester believes the F-35 program’s current schedule of completing system development and demonstration (SDD) and entering initial operational test and evaluation (IOT&E) by August 2017 is unrealistic and may not take place until as late as August 2018.
Michael Gilmore, director of operational test and evaluation (OT&E), said in his annual report released Feb. 1 the F-35 Joint Program Office (JPO) continues to plan for IOT&E in August 2017, three months after the program’s planned completion of developmental flight test in May 2017, or one month later than the recently briefed date of July 2017. IOT&E is a key milestone in the development of a weapon system to determine whether systems are operationally effective and suitable and ready to proceed beyond low-rate initial production.
Gilmore said in the intervening three months, the program must complete all the analyses and certification requirements to allow final preparations for IOT&E to begin. There are also clear indications, he said, that it is no longer possible to meet the requirements to allow final preparations for IOT&E to begin.
Gilmore said these indications include the program’s joint test plans for Block 3F mission systems testing containing more testing than can be completed by May 2017, which is the planned end of Block 3F flight test, according to the most recent program schedule. He said even extending the deadline to complete SDD flight test until July 2017 is not realistic.
Instead, Gilmore believes the F-35 program will not finish Block 3F development and flight testing before January 2018. He bases this on continuing a six test point per flight accomplishment rate, which he said is equal to the calendar year 2015 rate observed through the end of November. Gilmore also bases this on continuing a flight rate of 6.8 flights per month with the six mission systems developmental test aircraft assigned to Edwards AFB, Calif.
He said this rate was achieved through the end of November 2015, exceeding the planned rate of six flights per month. Gilmore said if the flight rate deteriorates to the planned rate of six flights per month, then testing will not complete until May 2018. The program could, as Gilmore said has been the case in testing previous software increments, determine that test points in the plan are no longer required for Block 3F fleet release. However, he said, the program will need to ensure that deleting and/or deferring testing from Block 3F before the end of SDD and the start of IOT&E does not increase the likelihood of discovery in IOT&E or affect the assessment of mission capability.
Another reason Gilmore believes the F-35 program won’t meet its August 2017 IOT&E goal is it wouldn’t start IOT&E earlier than August 2018 based on these projected completion dates for Block 3F developmental testing. A third reason is the 48 Block 3F developmental test weapons delivery accuracy (WDA) events in the approved test and evaluation master plan (TEMP), plus two test events deferred from Block 2B, will not be accomplished by the planned deadline of May 2017, he said.
WDA events also will not be accomplished by July 2017, which Gilmore said was a more recently briefed date for the completion of SDD flight test, unless the program is able to significantly increase its historic WDA completion rate of approximately one event per month.
In a statement provided via a spokesman, F-35 Program Executive Officer (PEO) Air Force Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan said Feb. 1 additional software block updates are planned throughout 2016 with Block 3F tracking for completion by the end of SDD in the fall of 2017 to support Navy F-35C initial operational capability (IOC) in 2018 and the start of IOT&E. Bogdan added that throughout testing, interim software test builds are provided to both the developmental test and operational test teams, allowing them to experience the software as early as possible to provide feedback to F-35 Joint Program Office (JPO) teams.
Bogdan said as of Dec. 31, the F-35 program completed 80 percent of SDD test points and is on track for completion in the fourth quarter of 2017. The F-35 is developed by Lockheed Martin [LMT] with subcontractors BAE Systems and Northrop Grumman [NOC].