Lockheed Martin’s Agreement to Pay $70.6 Million for Failures in F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Program...

About dang time because the Strike Fighter has been a LEMON and even our NATO partners have expressed “buyer’s remorse”

F-35 a LEMON that you can’t make into lemonade - the costliest DOD mistake by Lockheed Martin

The F-35 Joint Strike Forced program is unique and is classified as a tri-Service, multinational, single-seat, single-engine family of strike aircraft consisting of three variants:

• - F-35A Conventional Take-Off and Landing

• - F-35B Short Take-Off /Vertical-Landing

• - F-35C Aircraft Carrier Variant

The testing components are intriguing - especially in the context of the “ongoing F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Initial Operational Test and Evaluation” F-35

Over one year ago the Department of Defense (DOD) issued a scathing and troubling report outlining the major failures of Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Strike Fighter Jet program¹ - at the time there seemed to be specific design and F-35 Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS)²

In the previously published public - January 2020 Report the DOD itemized into thirteen Category 1 "must fix" - which are both technical and mechanical issues “still unresolved” ³. These report and requirements of Category 1 “must fix” of the F-35 ultimately stalled the production. Again much of the technical issues that stymied product surrounded the ALIS, to that end on November 13, 2019 the DOD formally announced;

DOD Expects Significant Progress on Critical F-35 System

“single new version of ALIS marching forward that leverages an underlying data architecture that's expandable with the expanding fleet in ways that the current ALIS is not," 

This is important because the ALIS acted as the internal diagnostic of the Aircraft’s health and maintenance. Meaning the software sent information via the ALIS software within each aircraft to the vast DOD distribution logistical support network. In short the ALIS software acts as a central information conduit from the aircraft to the various DOD logical supply chain. But from a maintenance standpoint this would also create a ticket for the maintenance crew -which are already understaffed and overwhelmed by the sheer volume of tickets opened.

In short this isn’t my opinion (which is actually immaterial) for example;

June of 2019, the DOD Inspector General (IG) estimated the DOD ⁴would need to spend more than $300 million on additional labor costs - between 2015 and 2018 as a result of Lockheed Martin’s failure to provide F-35 spare parts with logs. Based on the DOD contact it would still require the DOD to pay $55 million a year to Lockheed Martin, even if issues remained unresolved. Remember that the F-35 roll out of production in a staggered basis.

March 2020, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported just at one location alone, F-35 maintenance personnel issued dire warnings that during a six-month period in 2019, they experienced up to 400 issues per week of inaccurate or missing electronic logs. The GAO stated In detail was growing concern about

aimed at ensuring consistent, high-quality products, and fielded aircraft do not meet reliability goals."Do you see why and how the ALIS issues essentially snowballed?

July 23, 2020 - Congressional Hearing

• from Ellen Lord, Under Secretary for Acquisitions and Sustainment, Department of Defense

• Lieutenant General Eric T. Fick, Program Executive Officer, F-35 Joint Program Office, Department of Defense;

•  Diana Maurer, Director of Defense Capabilities and Management, Government Accountability Office; 

• Theresa Hull, Assistant Inspector General, Office of Inspector General, Department of Defense; and 

• Gregory M. Ulmer, Vice President and General Manager, F-35 Lightning II Program, Lockheed Martin.

Congressional letters⁵ to Lockheed Martin concerning the F-35, which reads in part:

“…the Committee learned troubling information about how unresolved issues with F-35 spare parts lead to excess costs for the military because DOD must divert personnel to troubleshoot these issues and use extensive work-arounds to keep F-35 planes flying…DOD is working with Lockheed Martin to reduce the total number of F-35 parts that require EELs by 45%. Reducing the number of parts that require electronic logs would decrease the potential for EELs to go missing or become corrupt..”

September 21, 2020, Chairwoman Maloney, Chairman Lynch, Rep. Speier, Rep. Khanna, and Rep. Porter sent a letter to DOD urging immediate action to rectify problems with the F-35 program that impede its cost-effective sustainment going forward.

To say the recent disclosure that the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) settlement agreement with Lockheed Martin⁶ is a massive win for Congressional Oversight and the respective chairs of the various House Committees should be lauded for their robust oversight into the mess that has become a potential National Security Issue -

“…While we believe Lockheed should have reimbursed American taxpayers for a greater share of the inefficiencies uncovered by our Committee’s investigation, this is a step in the right direction.  Moving forward, Lockheed must take responsibility for ensuring that the F-35 program meets contract requirements and the needs of our military personnel…”

In closing, if you think that moving forward the House will demure on the necessary oversight then I don’t think you know how D.C. actually works because this is exactly how Government OverSight should work. In short if a Defense Contractor isn’t meeting the Terms and Conditions (Ts & Cs) of their contractual obligations or if the contract is so onerous that it requires the Government to keep paying the Contractor even in the face of gross failures. Perhaps the DCMA should re-read the Ts & Cs and make the necessary amendments - but it was a very smart move that Congress pulled by adding language to the National Defense Authorization Act… there are multiple ways to skin a cat in D.C.

1. Department of Defense FY-2018 F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) report, last visited on March 7, 2021 - https://www.dote.osd.mil/Portals/97/pub/reports/FY2018/dod/2018f35jsf.pdf?ver=2019-08-21-155717-757

2. Lockheed-Martin ALIS, last visited March 7, 2021 https://lockheedmartin.com/en-us/products/autonomic-logistics-information-system-alis.html

3. “The Gun On the Air Force's F-35 Has 'Unacceptable' Accuracy, Pentagon Testing Office Says” Time Magazine last visited on March 8, 2021 https://time.com/5774422/f-35-military-jet-assessment/

4. Department of Defense, Office of Inspector General, Audit of F-35 Ready-For-Issue Spare Parts and Sustainment Performance Incentive Fees (June 13, 2019) https://media.defense.gov/2019/Jun/17/2002145901/-1/-1/1/DODIG-2019-094.PDF

5. June 18, 2020 - from Chairwoman Maloney, Chairman Lynch, Rep. Speier, and Rep. Khanna, letter to Lockheed Martin requesting documents related to the F-35 program - last visited March 7, 2021 - https://oversight.house.gov/sites/democrats.oversight.house.gov/files/2020-06-18.CBM%20Lynch%20Speier%20Khanna%20to%20Lockheed%20Martin%20re%20F-35%20Spare%20Parts_0.pdf

6. Last visited March 6, 2021 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-02/pentagon-lockheed-reach-final-agreement-on-f-35-part-refunds