Rep. Brown Explains Support for Full F-35 Buy.

Rep. Brown Explains Support for Full F-35 Buy.
May 12, 2021 ...
The F-35’s operational success outweighs its readiness and sustainment challenges, it is making progress against those issues, and it is too strategically important not to keep funding, House Armed Services committee member Rep. Anthony Brown (D-Maryland) said at a defense conference.Speaking at the McAleese FY2022 Defense Programs Conference on May 12, Brown explained that he signed a letter from 132 House lawmakers to the body’s leadership urging full F-35 support because “it’s performing well” in “executing … real-world missions.”

He also noted “challenges” with software, simulators, and integrating the F-35 in the Joint Simulation Environment, as well as chronic issues relating to the Autonomic Logistics Information System and “setting up the government-operated and maintained depots.”However, the F-35 is “a capability that we dramatically need, certainly as we’re pivoting to the Indo-Pacific,” and it is complementary to other needs in that theater, notably “other fighters, and the bomber fleet, [and] the refueling fleet.” He called it “integral to air dominance” and urged that Congress “continue the investment. We are making progress. There is frustration around the pace of progress, but we are going to get there.”

DOD Extends F-35 Full-Rate Production Decision Due to Pandemic
Jan. 4, 2021 ...
The F-35 will get yet another extension to complete development and be declared ready for full-rate production, Pentagon acquisition and sustainment czar Ellen M. Lord has directed.Blaming technical challenges and the COVID-19 pandemic for the process continuing past the March deadline, Lord is also bringing in an independent technical review entity to help set a new schedule.According to a Dec. 18 Acquisition Decision Memorandum signed by Lord, the Milestone C decision—which certifies the F-35 as having successfully completed initial operational test and evaluation and clears it for full-rate production—will be extended, though she did not set a new target date.

She granted another extension in August to March 2021, saying she had “high confidence” of meeting that date because “we have the entire government/industry team focused on that.”.