Recently, it became known that the US Department of Defense in July will stopDeliveries of fifth-wing fighters
What is known
The Pentagon refuses to accept fighters until thoseuntil Lockheed Martin completes all testing of the updated technology. We are talking about aircraft that will receive the Technology Refresh 3 (TR-3) upgrade.
TR-3 upgrade will bring a set of improvementshardware and software levels. This is a critical step before upgrading Block 4. As it became known, F-35 Lightning II fighters with TR-3 hardware will be in limbo. Deliveries of TR-2 aircraft will not be terminated.
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Joint F-35 Program Office (F-35 JointProgram Office, JPO) believes that the pause will last until the spring of 2024. The production rate is nine aircraft per month. This means that by April next year, 81 fighters will go to the warehouse.
Lockheed Martin is confident that it will succeedsolve all problems in the last quarter of the current year. In this case, the company will build and send to the warehouse 45 fifth-generation fighters, i.е. almost two times less.
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Lockheed Martin doesn't say how muchthe cessation of supplies will affect financial performance. This is due to the so-called "quiet period" that occurred before the announcement of earnings for the third quarter of fiscal year 2023, which ended on June 30.