NORFOLK, Va. — At $478 billion and counting, or, $78 million per plane, it's already the most expensive weapons program in history.
Now, the Government Accountability Office is taking the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter to task again.
In a new report this week, the GAO said the $478-billion program "is not meeting standards aimed at ensuring consistent, high-quality products, and fielded aircraft do not meet reliability goals."
The report goes on to say "The F-35 program is at risk of missing its test schedule and not meeting manufacturing leading practices."
"Can it fly when it needs to fly?" asked Jon Ludwigson, a Director in GAO's Contracting and National Security Acquisitions. "And if it needs to BE repaired quickly, can it be repaired quickly? And what we found is the R and M, the metrics that were established for this program, the reliability and maintenance, they haven't met all of them."
The report says the cost to modernize aircraft systems went up about $1.5 billion, or 14 percent, since the program's May 2019 annual report to Congress.
Current DOD plans call for acquiring a total of 2,456 F-35's, despite its 873 unresolved design flaws.
"At the basic level, the F-35's that are in the field are not as reliable as they're supposed to be, which means fewer are available for missions and they cost more to maintain or maybe even both of those," said Ludwigson, in a podcast on the GAO's website.
The GAO made five recommendations it said would "help the Defense Department make its modernization cost estimate more comprehensive and credible."