Production anniversary at Lockheed MartinA few days ago, the US defense contractor announced the completion of its thousandth F-35. However, the jet has not yet been delivered and further details will only be published after delivery. The F-35 Lighting II still lacks the necessary TR-3 hardware and the final TR-3 software for delivery.
The reason for the delay in delivery is the Technology Refresh 3 Upgrade (TR-3). This upgrade provides the computing power to support Block 4 capabilities, but according to Lockheed Martin, there have been problems with it in recent months. Originally, delivery of the first TR-3-configured aircraft was planned for April 2023, but due to the delays it will now only take place between April and June of this year. Lockheed said: “We continue to produce the F-35 at a rapid pace and have jets in various stages of the final production process. Once these jets have received the necessary TR-3 hardware and the final TR-3 software is available, they will move through the production process, including shutdown, to delivery.” https://militaeraktuell.at/royal-navy-vergibt-auftrag-an-mbda/ The Pentagon has temporarily halted deliveries of the TR-3 aircraft pending completion of flight testing. Despite the problems, Lockheed Martin is sticking to its production target of 156 aircraft. The company also expects to be able to complete and deliver more than 100 aircraft once deliveries resume. TR-3 is considered essential to support the F-35’s modernized Block 4 capabilities. These capabilities include new sensor suites, enhanced electronic warfare capabilities, more long-range precision weapons and more powerful data fusion and improved cross-platform interoperability. In addition, TR-3 improves core processing performance and storage capacity. TR-3 will be installed as standard on all newly produced aircraft, and the program will also be retrofitted on all F-35s already in service up to Lot 10. The plan is to carry out the 14-day retrofit as part of the scheduled maintenance work. This will allow the new system to be integrated into the aircraft quickly and comparatively easily. https://militaeraktuell.at/daedalus-2024-erfolgreich-beendet/ About TR-3, Lockheed Martin says: “In recent months, we have begun testing the next software version, which will improve stability, radar, NextGenDAS and weapons capability. We have also begun test flights with the TR-3 software on F-35 production jets at Fort Worth, and flight testing continues at Edwards Air Force Base and Naval Air Station Patuxent River. By the end of December, we had completed more than 180 flights. We also remain focused on accelerating the delivery of hardware by our subcontractors to be integrated into TR-3.”
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