13 mai 2020 | International, Aérospatial
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) said on May 12 that the Lockheed Martin F-35 Block 4 program must be extended two years due to development delays, adding $1.5 billion to the overall price tag.
The original schedule called for completing the Block 4 modernization program in 2024, but the timeline must be extended to 2026, GAO said in the watchdog agency's annual review of the F-35 program.
The F-35 Joint Program Office initially estimated the cost to develop all 66 new capabilities in Block 4 would be $10.6 billion. The two-year extension to deliver Block 4 raises the development cost to $12.1 billion, with another $3.4 billion budgeted to procure and insert the capabilities in future U.S. F-35s, GAO said.
The Block 4 delays started in 2019. Lockheed planned to deliver the first eight Block 4 capabilities last year, but only one—the automatic ground collision avoidance system—entered service, GAO said. In another example, Lockheed delivered software last year to enable the interim full-motion video capability for the Marine Corps F-35Bs, but failed to deliver the associated hardware, the report said.
As Block 4 capabilities have entered testing, the Defense Department's operational testers have noticed other problems. Some of the new capabilities have “caused issues” with existing F-35 functions that previously worked, GAO said.
“The contractor had not performed adequate testing of the software before delivering it to the test fleet,” GAO said. For its part, the contractor acknowledged the issues and said they would conduct additional testing in software laboratories before releasing future software blocks, GAO added.
20 février 2023 | International, Terrestre
L’armée américaine a annoncé un contrat de près d’un milliard de dollars pour augmenter la production de munitions d’artillerie de calibre 155 mm, utilisées en grande quantité par l’Ukraine.
15 juin 2021 | International, Aérospatial
DÉFENSE Airbus Helicopters anticipe des commandes sur le segment militaire Avec les conséquences de la crise sanitaire les commandes militaires ont pallié l'effondrement des commandes civiles. En avril, le gouvernement français a notifié́ à Airbus Helicopters une commande anticipée de huit hélicoptères lourds, de type Caracal pour 300 millions d'euros. Il a également accéléré le développement et l'achat de drones aériens pour la Marine nationale. Mais les négociations principales sont autour du H160. L'appareil a vocation à remplacer une demi-douzaine de modèles anciens utilisés par les trois armées. Déjà certifié par l'Agence européenne de sécurité aérienne, le H160 attend sa certification américaine pour débuter les livraisons à ses clients. Pour les armées françaises, Airbus évoque désormais une conclusion possible « avant la fin 2021 » en vue de premières livraisons en 2026. « Comme les versions militaires seront livrées après nos modèles civils, elles bénéficieront du rodage et de toutes les opérations de dérisquage menées pour les versions civiles », explique Matthieu Louvot, Executive Vice-President Programs chez Airbus Helicopters en charge des programmes militaires. Au total, 169 appareils dont 80 pour l'armée de Terre, 40 pour l'armée de l'Air et de l'Espace, et 49 pour la Marine nationale doivent être livrés. La Marine nationale attend d'ailleurs la livraison d'un premier H160 civil en mai 2022. En dehors de la configuration civile de base, celui-ci disposera d'une boule Euroflir 410, un treuil, une capacité corde lisse, un bac d'égouttement, un interrogateur AIS, une « capacité jumelles de vision nocturnes », un goniomètre et un aménagement intérieur pour prendre en compte des patients. Le contrat final pour dix H160 au profit de la Gendarmerie nationale est toujours en négociation, et ne devrait pas se nouer avant la fin de l'année. Les Echos et Air & Cosmos, 15 juin
22 juillet 2020 | International, Aérospatial
By: Valerie Insinna Updated 7/21/20 at 1:25 p.m. EST to add more information about the status of the eight Turkish F-35s. WASHINGTON — After a year of speculation about what would happen to Turkey's F-35s after the country was ousted from the joint strike fighter program last year, the Defense Department gave its definitive answer Monday evening in a characteristically anticlimactic manner — through its daily contract announcements. The U.S. Air Force will officially buy eight F-35A conventional takeoff and landing jets originally built by Lockheed Martin for Turkey as part of a $862 million contract modification. The deal also contains an additional six F-35As built for the Air Force and modifications that will bring the Turkish jets in line with the U.S. configuration. A defense official told Defense News on Tuesday that the contract modification fulfills stipulations in Congress' fiscal year 2020 defense policy and spending bills. It “addresses the eight production Lot 14 F-35A aircraft originally planned to be delivered to Turkey in 2022-23,” and redirects those jets to the U.S. Air Force when they roll off the production line. The six other F-35As reflect aircraft added to the FY20 defense budget. The contract modification uses funding from the FY20 budget to pay for the Lot 14 jets. The Pentagon and Lockheed Martin finalized a deal for lots 12, 13 and 14 in October 2019, which set the price of an Lot 14 A model at $77.9 million per copy. Turkey had planned to buy 100 F-35As over the course of the program, but was ejected from the program last July after accepting the S-400 air defense system from Russia after repeated warnings from U.S. officials. At that point, Turkey's first F-35s had already rolled off the production line and its pilots and maintainers were training to fly and fix them stateside alongside U.S. personnel at Luke Air Force Base, Ariz., and Eglin Air Force Base, Fla. However, the aircraft were never officially delivered to Turkey. Since then, the fate of Turkey's jets had been an open question. In January, Defense One reported that 24 Turkish F-35s were in some stage of production, but top Pentagon weapons buyer Ellen Lord told reporters then that Washington and Ankara had not come to an agreement on what would happen to them. In the FY20 version of the National Defense Authorization Act, Congress gave the Pentagon permission to spend up to $30 million to fly the first six Turkish F-35s to a location where they could be stored and preserved until the department came up with a plan for their use. Those jets, which were produced in Lots 10 and 11, are currently being held “in long-term storage in the United States pending final decision on their disposition,” the defense official said. The Senate's version of the FY21 NDAA, which is still working its way through Congress, contains additional language that would allow the Air Force to accept, operate or even modify the first six Turkish F-35s. https://www.defensenews.com/air/2020/07/20/its-official-us-air-force-to-buy-turkish-f-35s/