Every Single F-35 Delivered To The US Military Last Year Was Late

 

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“TASK AND PURPOSE” By Matt White

“On average, new F-35s were delivered 238 days late in 2024. A government watchdog found that the Lockheed Martin continues to collect “hundreds of millions” in fees despite sagging delivery times. Current acquisition costs are $89.5 Billion more than 2012 Baseline Estimate.”

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“Every F-35 delivered to the U.S. military last year by Lockheed Martin was behind schedule by an average of seven months, a government watchdog found, but contractors kept millions in “incentive fees” designed to speed up the delivery.

To catch up, the aerospace giant now says it will “reduce the scope” of capabilities in new planes. 

The latest round of jets will now “cost $6 billion more and completion is at least 5 years later than original estimates,” a report by the Government Accountability Office found. “In 2024, Lockheed delivered 110 aircraft. All were late by an average of 238 days, up from 61 days in 2023.”

In a statement to Task & Purpose on the GAO report, a Lockheed Martin spokesperson said, “The F-35 is combat-proven, offers the most advanced capability and technology, and is the most affordable option to ensure America and its allies remain ahead of emerging threats.”

The F-35 has been slated to be the U.S. military’s primary modern strike and air superiority fighter since it was originally funded in 2001, and is — uniquely among strike aircraft — flown by all three fixed-wing air components. The Air Force took delivery in April of its 500th F-35, the Marines own about 250, and the Navy has over 100. Those totals are about one-third of the roughly 2,470 fighters the Pentagon plans to buy and fly for 77 years, according to the GAO.

But the program has been beset by cost overruns and delayed deliveries since its inception. The total cost of the full F-35 fleet was expected to be $233 billion when originally funded in 2001. By December 2023, that number had more than doubled to $485 billion.

The latest round of F-35s delivered in the last seven years and currently on order are known as Block 4 of the program. Block 4 jets, the GAO said, were meant to come equipped with “new weapons, radar enhancements, and technology to avoid aircraft collisions” and with new features that “address new threats that have emerged since DOD established the aircraft’s original requirements in 2000.”

But those enhancements, the GAO said, will now be scaled back.

“The program plans to reduce the scope of Block 4 to deliver capabilities to the warfighter at a more predictable pace than in the past,” the GAO said.

The specific list of Block 4 enhancements that will be scaled back will be finalized this fall, the GAO said. F-35 officials told the GAO that they will delay “some capabilities—including those that require an upgraded engine to function—to future modernization efforts. Program officials stated that they will also remove others that no longer meet warfighter needs.”

In its statement to Task & Purpose, Lockheed Martin said it “will deliver 170-190 F-35s this year and continue fielding Block 4 capabilities to ensure the F-35 maintains its unmatched dominance in the skies.” 

A screenshot from the GAO report showing delays in 2024 compared to previous years. Screenshot via Government Accountability Office.

Dan Grazier, a senior fellow and program director at the Stimson Center, has tracked the F-35 program for over a decade at government watchdogs. The admission that some Block 4 technology will be reduced “seems kind of innocuous, but is absolutely mind-blogging,” he said.

“[They] don’t go into what capabilities they’re shaving off the top, but I promise you, the capabilities that they aren’t going to deliver for the F-35 were the capabilities for which they sold the program in the very first place,” Grazier said. “The really high-end capabilities [are] what we’re really paying for when we’re paying this massive premium.”

Millions in fees for late deliveries

The GAO report also said Lockheed has collected “hundreds of millions of dollars” intended to reward quicker production for planes delivered late.

“The F-35 program’s use of incentive fees has largely been ineffective at holding the contractors accountable to delivering engines and aircraft on time,” the report found. “The F-35 program office compensated Lockheed Martin with hundreds of millions of dollars of performance incentive fees while the percentage of aircraft delivered late and the average days late grew.”

Through 2022, most F-35s were delivered by Lockheed Martin on time or with delays that averaged less than a month. But in 2023, 89 of 98 planes were late and in 2024, all 110 were late by an average delay of 238 days.

But as deliveries fell behind, the GAO found, F-35 officials adjusted the terms of the fees.

“Where the program originally tied incentives to on-time delivery, the program gave the contractor a second chance to earn fees by redirecting those incentives to other aspects of the program when it was clear that Lockheed Martin would not deliver any aircraft on time,” the GAO found.

Engine maker Pratt & Whitney also collected “tens of millions” in incentive fees despite late deliveries of the engines.

“This incentive structure and late delivery penalty was not effective at improving on-time deliveries,” the GAO said. “Unless the F-35 program reevaluates its use of incentive fees and better aligns them to achieving desired production schedule outcomes, it will be at greater risk of continuing to reward contractors for delivering engines and aircraft late.”

Every single F-35 delivered to the US military last year was late

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Matt Whit is a senior editor at Task & Purpose. He was a pararescueman in the Air Force and the Alaska Air National Guard for eight years and has more than a decade of experience in daily and magazine journalism. He also teaches news writing at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill’s Hussman School of Journalism and Media where he is frequently referred to as a “very tough grader” on Rate My Professor. You can reach Matt at matthew.white@taskandpurpose.com

Industry/Pentagon Revolving Door Featured in Deputy Secretary of Defense Confirmation

“BREAKING DEFENSE”

“Mr. Shanahan, you’re not making me happy,” the chairman said. “You just ducked basically every question Sen. Fischer asked you.”

After Nebraska Senator Deb Fischer tried to elicit the nominee’s position on how to respond to Russian violations of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, McCain stepped in.

McCain’s biggest objection to Shanahan, however, was the nominee’s 31 years at America’s second largest defense contractor, Boeing. (Only Lockheed Martin sells more to the Pentagon. And Sen. McCain, thanks to the long-running scandal over Boeing’s former tanker deal, is believed to harbor a deep suspicion of Boeing’s conduct).

“Not a good beginning. Not a good beginning,” Senate Armed Services chairman John McCain told the administration’s nominee for deputy secretary of defense this morning. “Do not do that again, Mr. Shanahan, or I will not take your name up for a vote before this committee. Am I perfectly clear?”

“Very clear,” said Patrick Shanahan, enduring a rocky confirmation hearing for the No. 2 position in the Pentagon, which remains unusually short on senior officials. Other senators at the hearing asked Shanahan about Pentagon procurement, especially about nurturing innovation, continuing the Third Off Strategy for high-tech weapons, and starting the Pentagon’s long-awaited audit this fall. But McCain repeatedly took the mike to berate the Trump nominee for non-answers on Russia and for potential conflicts of interest after his 31 years at Boeing.

In that initial exchange, Shanahan’s specific offense was giving a vague non-answer in his written testimony to the committee’s question on whether he supported providing “lethal defensive weapons” to Ukraine. In the hearing, ironically, when McCain asked Shanahan to clarify, he stated his support for arming the Ukrainians so swiftly and unequivocally that the irascible but aging senator seemed momentarily thrown before returning to the attack.

“I want to move forward as quickly as I can with your nomination,” McCain told Shanahan at the hearing’s end, “(but) I am concerned. 90 percent of defense spending is in the hands of five corporations, of which you represent one. I have to have confidence that the fox is not going to be put back into the henhouse.”

“Mr. Shanahan, I think you’re a fine man; you have an outstanding record; (but) take a look at your responses that you sent to this committee,” McCain said. “Some of them were less than specific, at least one of them (was) almost insulting.”

Citing US casualties in Afghanistan, Ukrainian casualties against Russian-backed separatists, and the US shoot-down of a Syrian jet, McCain made it clear he wants clear answers on administration policy — and if the committee doesn’t get them, it will find answers of its own as it works on the annual defense policy bill.

“I want some answers, I want some straightforward answers, (and) if they don’t give us a strategy from the people that I admire most, we’re going to put a strategy in,” McCain warned. “I want to work with this administration, I want to work with this president, I want to work with the new secretary of defense, — who I happen to be one of the most ardent admirers of — but I have to tell you, in a couple of weeks, we’re going to mark-up up the defense authorization bill….The president has two choices: Either give us a strategy or we will put a strategy that we develop into the defense authorization bill.”

“Somehow over the last several years, this committee seems to have been treated as sort of a rubber stamp,” McCain concluded. “That’s not what the Constitution of the United States says. The Constitution of the United States says that the Senate would provide advice and consent.”

McCain Hammers DepSecDef Nominee Shanahan On Russia, Boeing