Pentagon Safety Concerns Delay Delivery of Newest Fighter Jet Tech to Australia

A pilot assigned to the 61st Fighter Squadron and 61st Aircraft Maintenance Unit crew chiefs prepare an F-35A Lightning II for taxi at Luke Air Force Base, Ariz., on Jan. 15, 2019. Crew chiefs work with pilots to ensure the F-35 takes-off and lands safely. (U.S Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Jacob Wongwai)

Australia’s new F-35A  fighter jets may require technological upgrades after the Pentagon’s decision to delay the approval of the plane’s new weapons system.

Known as the TR-3, the top-tier software system allows the new F-35A Joint Strike Fighters (JSF) to run a software platform called Block 4 that provides a range of new weapon capabilities for the JSF, like enhanced electronic attack weapons and the ability to carry additional missiles.

This comes as the TR-3’s development has been embroiled in delays, with the F-35 Lightening II Joint Program Office (JPO), which is in charge of the plane’s ongoing development, recently disclosing to the Breaking Defense website that the U.S. military would not accept any aircraft until ongoing testing for the system was completed.

This has meant that any newly manufactured fighter jets by Lockheed Martin that the United States takes delivery of will be mothballed until then.

A spokesperson for Lockheed Martin told The Epoch Times that the company would deliver Australia’s order of 72 fighter jets with the plane’s previous computational system, the TR-2, although they remain committed to providing TR-3 for the F-35 fleet as early as possible.

“Lockheed Martin is fully dedicated to delivering TR-3 F-35 aircraft and will continue to work with the Joint Program Office on software development while maintaining the highest levels of safety and quality,” a spokesperson for Lockheed Martin Australia said in an email.

“We continue to deliver aircraft in the TR-2 configuration as planned.”

The JSF has had issues with software platforms previously, with TR-2 struggling with the aircraft’s open-air tests, including the AIM-120 missile trial, which was delayed until a software update in 2021, the U.S. Military’s Office of the Director, Operational Test and Evaluation, said in a report.

The Lockheed Martin spokesperson also said that the company was not able to predict if there will be any future delays in the delivery of the TR-3 system to the Australian fleet of planes.

“It is too early to predict any future delivery adjustments. We remain committed to providing TR-3 for the F-35 fleet as early as possible.”

The Epoch Times has reached out to Australia’s Defence Department and the Shadow Defence Minister Andrew Hastie to ask about the delay and its impacts on Australia’s capabilities but has not received a comment from either party.

A Lockheed Martin F-35 aircraft at the ILA Air Show in Berlin, on April 25, 2018. (Axel Schmidt/Reuters)

The comments from Lockheed’s spokesperson come after the company’s head of international business, Steve Over, said in March that the manufacturer was on track to deliver Australia’s order of the F-35 Lightning II fighters by the end of 2023, reported Flight Global.

This is aligned with the Australian Defence Force’s own operational own timeline (pdf).

According to the company, this will make Australia the second-largest operator of the fifth-generation jet, following the United States.

US Won’t Accept Tr-3 Hardware From July

The delay in the delivery of the systems comes after the JPO told the U.S. Congress in March that they believed there was a “risk of TR-3 delivery slipping until the December 2023-April 2024 timeframe.”

“Starting later this summer, F-35 aircraft coming off the production line with TR-3 hardware will not be accepted (DD250) until relevant combat capability is validated in accordance with our users’ expectations. The JPO and Lockheed Martin will ensure these aircraft are safely and securely stored,” JPO spokesman Russ Goemaere told Breaking Defense on June 12.

Two Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 stealth fighter jets fly to the Avalon Airshow in Victoria (Australian Defence Force/Handout via REUTERS)

The decision to mothball the planes comes after the jet’s production was suspended for three months following a crash during testing in December 2022 at Fort Worth in Texas, where a pilot was practising vertical landings and takeoffs.

The pilot was forced to eject from the plane, with the U.S. military saying the jet suffered from a very rare form of harmonic resonance.

On Jan. 5, Pentagon Press Secretary Brigadier General Pat Ryder said that the JPO office has agreed with the planes’ engine manufacturers Pratt and Whitney, to delay the scheduled delivery and acceptance of F-135 engines until further information from the investigation is known and the safety of flight can be assured.

“In the meantime, our F-35s that are in the operational fleet continue to operate.”

China Warned New F-35 is a Threat

The delay in the Tr-3 system comes after a study in the Chinese language journal Modern Defence Technology in April warned that the newest F-35 poses a more significant threat than the US F-22 Raptor Stealth Bomber, reported the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

The study analysed the threat levels of different U.S. military aircraft at different stages of a counter-air operation at a range of distances from China’s coastline and found F-35A was likely to be a more versatile and capable aircraft in any potential conflict in China’s home waters.

The SCMP said the study suggested that China should enhance its “soft kill” electronic warfare capabilities as well as physical weapons to provide a “hard kill” response

“The F-35A poses a greater threat than the F-22A due to its more advanced avionics systems and multirole capabilities,” the study argued, reported the SCMP.

“Considering that [the F-35A] can be used both as a sensor for intelligence gathering and as a main escort for forward attacks, both soft kill and hard kill attack methods should be used against it.”