The Government Accountability Office (GOA) released a report detailing recommendations for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program on Tuesday.
The office said even though the program upped production and lowered costs for the model in 2019, it "is not meeting standards aimed at ensuring consistent, high-quality products, and fielded aircraft do not meet reliability goals."
That goes for more than 500 F-35 Fighters made so far.
On it's website, the GOA highlighted some of the major concerns it had with the aircraft program.
"The F-35 program is at risk of missing its test schedule and not meeting manufacturing leading practices," the GAO wrote.
It said the program can continue to make aircraft, but 2019s delays mean that the full-rate production decision has been pushed back to sometime between September 2020 and March 2021.
In the meantime, the GOA wants the program to develop its reporting processes.
It recommended five measures for the Department of Defense to take through continued production:
- The program should provide information to Congress about production risks, supplier readiness and targets missed before its "milestone C review" (the full-rate production decision).
- The F-35 Program should lay out a cost estimate that includes all "Block 4" incurred and future costs. (Block 4 describes the software used in the aircraft - it's an upcoming model, and is supposed to incorporate more weapons than the Block 3F versions of the F-35.)
- The program should plan an "office level, product-oriented work breakdown structure" for the requested cost estimate.
- The program should analyze any risks or uncertainties in its Block 4 cost estimate, to make sure the estimate is appropriately credible.
- In the next Block 4 cost estimate, the program should incorporate any costs and schedule risks it will need to develop technologies in the new F-35s.