[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


.                                     
                         [H.A.S.C. No. 117-22]

                         UPDATE ON F-35 PROGRAM 
                   ACCOMPLISHMENTS, ISSUES, AND RISKS

                               __________

                             JOINT HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

              SUBCOMMITTEE ON TACTICAL AIR AND LAND FORCES

                          MEETING JOINTLY WITH

                       SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS

                                 OF THE

                      COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES

                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                              HEARING HELD

                             APRIL 22, 2021


                                     
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] 

                               __________

                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
45-012                     WASHINGTON : 2022                     
          
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           SUBCOMMITTEE ON TACTICAL AIR AND LAND FORCES

                 DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey, Chairman

RUBEN GALLEGO, Arizona               VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri
SALUD O. CARBAJAL, California        MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio
ANTHONY G. BROWN, Maryland           ROBERT J. WITTMAN, Virginia
MIKIE SHERRILL, New Jersey, Vice     SCOTT DesJARLAIS, Tennessee
    Chair                            MATT GAETZ, Florida
KAIALI'I KAHELE, Hawaii              DON BACON, Nebraska
MARC A. VEASEY, Texas                MARK E. GREEN, Tennessee
STEPHANIE N. MURPHY, Florida         RONNY JACKSON, Texas
Vacancy

                 Heath Bope, Professional Staff Member
                Jay Vallario, Professional Staff Member
                         Caroline Kehrli, Clerk

                                 ------                                

                       SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS

                  JOHN GARAMENDI, California, Chairman

JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut            DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado
JACKIE SPEIER, California            JOE WILSON, South Carolina
JASON CROW, Colorado                 AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia
ELISSA SLOTKIN, Michigan, Vice       JACK BERGMAN, Michigan
    Chair                            MIKE JOHNSON, Louisiana
JARED F. GOLDEN, Maine               MARK E. GREEN, Tennessee
ELAINE G. LURIA, Virginia            LISA C. McCLAIN, Michigan
KAIALI'I KAHELE, Hawaii              BLAKE D. MOORE, Utah
MARILYN STRICKLAND, Washington

               Geoff Gosselin, Professional Staff Member
                 Ian Bennitt, Professional Staff Member
                           Sean Falvey, Clerk
                            
                            
                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page

              STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS

Garamendi, Hon. John, a Representative from California, Chairman, 
  Subcommittee on Readiness......................................     5
Hartzler, Hon. Vicky, a Representative from Missouri, Ranking 
  Member, Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces...........     4
Lamborn, Hon. Doug, a Representative from Colorado, Ranking 
  Member, Subcommittee on Readiness..............................     7
Norcross, Hon. Donald, a Representative from New Jersey, 
  Chairman, Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces.........     1

                               WITNESSES

Abba, Brig Gen David W., USAF, Director, F-35 Integration Office, 
  United States Air Force........................................    44
Bromberg, Matthew F., President, Military Engines, Pratt & 
  Whitney........................................................    11
Fick, Lt Gen Eric T., USAF, Program Executive Officer, F-35 Joint 
  Program Office, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for 
  Acquisition and Sustainment....................................    42
Maurer, Diana, Director, Defense Capabilities and Management, 
  U.S. Government Accountability Office..........................  8,41
Ulmer, Gregory M., Executive Vice President of Aeronautics, 
  Lockheed Martin................................................     9

                                APPENDIX

Prepared Statements:

    Abba, Brig Gen David W.......................................   165
    Bromberg, Matthew F..........................................   131
    Fick, Lt Gen Eric T..........................................   149
    Garamendi, Hon. John.........................................    78
    Maurer, Diana................................................    80
    Norcross, Hon. Donald........................................    75
    Ulmer, Gregory M.............................................   108

Documents Submitted for the Record:

    F-35 Incentivized Performance Metrics Information............   179

Witness Responses to Questions Asked During the Hearing:

    Mr. Bacon....................................................   192
    Mr. Bergman..................................................   192
    Mr. Garamendi................................................   193
    Mr. Moore....................................................   193
    Mr. Norcross.................................................   191
    Ms. Sherrill.................................................   192

Questions Submitted by Members Post Hearing:

    Mr. Moore....................................................   199
    Mr. Turner...................................................   197
       
       
       UPDATE ON F-35 PROGRAM ACCOMPLISHMENTS, ISSUES, AND RISKS

                              ----------                              

                  House of Representatives,
                       Committee on Armed Services,
            Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces,  
        Meeting Jointly with the Subcommittee on Readiness,
                          Washington, DC, Thursday, April 22, 2021.
    The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 9:31 a.m., in 
room 2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Donald Norcross 
(chairman of the Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces) 
presiding.

  OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. DONALD NORCROSS, A REPRESENTATIVE 
  FROM NEW JERSEY, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON TACTICAL AIR AND 
                          LAND FORCES

    Mr. Norcross. I would like to bring this hearing to order. 
And I welcome everyone to our first joint hybrid hearing of the 
117th Congress between Readiness and Tactical Air and Land. I 
would like to welcome my colleagues, the chairman of Readiness, 
Chairman Garamendi, my ranking member from Missouri, Mrs. 
Hartzler, and ranking member for Readiness, Doug Lamborn. Good 
to have you here.
    This hearing is focused on the Department's most expensive, 
complex [program] in the history of our country, the F-35 
Strike Fighter.
    I would like to welcome members who are joining us today, 
joining the hearing remotely. Members who are participating 
remotely must be visible on screen for the purpose of 
identification, establishing and maintaining a quorum, 
participating in proceedings, and voting.
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    Members may use the software platform's chat feature to 
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if necessary, mute unrecognized members' microphones to cancel 
any inadvertent background noise that may disrupt the 
proceedings.
    And, finally, all members, staff, and attendees in the 
hearing room, and the chair reminds everyone that they were 
required to observe standards of courtesy and decorum during 
the committee proceedings. This requirement includes the 
responsibility to protect public safety and health, 
particularly, during the pandemic. Members, staff, attendees 
are required to wear masks at all times in the hearing room 
without exception.
    Members who are attending this proceeding in person will 
not be recognized unless they are wearing a mask. The 
recognition will be withdrawn if a member removes his or her 
mask while speaking. The chair expects all members, staff, 
attendees to adhere to this requirement as a sign of respect 
for health and safety and the well-being of others. The chair 
views the failure to wear a mask as a serious breach of 
decorum. With that, I would like to give my opening statement.
    Today, we have two panels of witnesses testifying, and I 
welcome and want to thank them for being on the panels, and 
those witnesses for taking time to come here to discuss the 
accomplishment, issues, and certainly, the risk of the program.
    We are going to hear from leaders from the Department of 
Defense and two of the industry's prime contractors as well as 
GAO, the Government Accounting Office, serving as our 
independent agencies, helping us to evaluate and--excuse me, 
evaluate production and sustainment of this challenging 
program. Please note GAO witnesses will be in both panels.
    This October will mark the 20th anniversary of the start of 
the F-35 development. Two decades. And we still find the 
program struggling with risky, highly concurrent acquisition 
decisions made by past program leaders. The F-35 has been 
plagued throughout with unforeseen increase of development, 
production, and its maintenance and sustainment activities. 
Recent achievements of the aircraft are reassuring, the cost 
below $80 million. And that certainly is appreciated. And that 
is for the A frame. The program, certainly, has also failed to 
achieve full-rate production as planned, and still finds itself 
in low-rate production delivering less than the warfighter 
requirements.
    The Technical Refresh 3, or as we know the TR3 and Block 4 
combat capability F-35 is still at least 5 years away before 
declaring full operational capabilities. That is a quarter 
century to get there. And according to plan, we certainly find 
that based on recent developments that we expect that to slip, 
also.
    My current skepticism is driven by recent media reporting 
that the completion of the Joint Simulation Environment testing 
supporting initiative test and evaluation activities may not be 
completed until the end of 2022, which is a delay of more than 
3 years beyond the plan.
    Also, after a little bit more than 2 years into 
development, our understanding is that TR3 hardware supporting 
Block 4 capabilities is approximately 4 to 5 months behind 
schedule and likely to be near $450 million over its planned 
budget.
    Additionally, Block 4 software development is on shaky 
ground because Block 3F software, which is the foundation for 
Block 4, is a multiyear patchwork of inefficient and poorly 
designed software code that has been rushed to preserve the 
program schedule without undergoing the rigorous and full 
testing to find and fix the deficiencies prior to fielding. And 
this is resulting in significant software issues at the time 
when it is discovered in the field.
    Knowing that Block 4 capability is a significant leap, and 
it is, those combat capabilities and mission systems 
integration complexity, but we are very concerned that the 
program will be unable to maintain its projected pace of Block 
4 development and fielding without encountering significant 
software issues resulting in even further delay.
    And, finally, we are very concerned about the actual and 
projected sustainment costs that have been deemed unaffordable 
by senior Air Force leaders. This question of estimated costs 
and affordability could result in a 47 percent reduction in the 
Air Force planned inventory goal of 1,763 aircraft just to 
remain within their budget.
    I know our colleagues from Readiness will be addressing the 
program specific sustainment concerns. But if this program 
continues to fail to significantly control and reduce actual 
and projected sustainment costs, we may need to invest in other 
more affordable programs and backfill an operational shortfall 
of potentially over 800 tactical fighters.
    The Tactical Air and Land Subcommittee has been supportive 
of this program in the past. As we have said many times, we 
don't have unlimited resources. As we chase this exclusive--
elusive affordability of the program, and given the overall 
affordability concerns that exist within the program, I would 
not support any requests for additional aircraft beyond what is 
contained in this year's President's budget request.
    We have seen over the past since 2015, we have up 97 jets, 
which has created sustainment issue for parts and others. And 
we will get more into that with our questions.
    But before I turn it over to Mrs. Hartzler, I think it is 
important for us to just take a moment and thank those workers 
who through a pandemic have kept this and all our programs 
working. They have a debt of gratitude from the people on this 
panel for doing what they do helping to keep our country safe. 
They sacrificed. And would you please relay to your workforce 
our appreciation for what they do. With that, I want to turn it 
over to our Ranking Member Vicky Hartzler.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Norcross can be found in the 
Appendix on page 75.]

    STATEMENT OF HON. VICKY HARTZLER, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM 
MISSOURI, RANKING MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON TACTICAL AIR AND LAND 
                             FORCES

    Mrs. Hartzler. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And well said. 
Words of appreciation for your workforce who have continued to 
work throughout the pandemic and produce the aircraft for our 
Nation, and we are grateful for that.
    The F-35 is a tremendous platform that is critical to our 
modernization efforts. Fielding a fully mission capable F-35 
will fill a serious capability gap in our fighter fleet and 
help keep us ahead of our adversaries. But it is also one of 
the largest, most expensive, and most complex acquisition 
programs in DOD [Department of Defense] history. And getting it 
done right has been a struggle for both the Department and 
industry.
    Although progress continues to be made, I share the 
concerns my colleagues have expressed about capability delays, 
affordability issues, and readiness problems which continue to 
impact the program. I am particularly concerned with delays in 
the development of Tech Refresh 3, and the development of Block 
4 capabilities. The chairman touched on this a little bit.
    But as GAO [Government Accountability Office] recently 
found, the DOD's current timeline of 2027 to complete Block 4 
upgrades is unachievable. This is troubling, because while the 
F-35 is currently one of the most advanced fighter aircraft on 
Earth, our adversaries are quickly catching up. The rapid 
modernization of the Chinese military, especially its anti-
access/area denial capabilities, will soon challenge the F-35's 
relevance. Block 4 capabilities are needed as soon as possible 
to maintain the F-35 superiority and ensure a credible 
deterrent against China and our adversaries.
    I look forward to hearing from our witnesses about the 
actions being taken to overcome the challenges associated with 
Tech Refresh 3 and the Block 4 upgrades, as well as how risks 
associated with these delays are being mitigated.
    I am also concerned that after nearly two decades and over 
600 aircraft acquired, we are still in the operational test and 
evaluation phase. The F-35 cannot move into full-rate 
production until the DOD completes the joint simulator 
environment and conducts the complex test scenarios that will 
validate aircraft capabilities.
    According to recent reports, the simulator will not be 
ready until late 2022. That is over 3 years behind schedule. In 
the interim, DOD and the industry must work to resolve over 800 
deficiencies which impact performance and safety. Our goal 
should be to field a fully mission capable aircraft as soon as 
possible. That cannot happen until we can test the aircraft 
against its requirements and prove to the taxpayer that it does 
what we need it to do.
    I hope our witnesses can explain why the schedule on this 
important milestone continues to slip. I know my Readiness 
Subcommittee colleagues intend to raise a host of concerns 
associated with sustainment costs and reliability. I share 
their concerns. I look forward to that discussion with our 
witnesses.
    But it is not all gloom and doom. The F-35 has come a long 
way in recent years. I applaud the DOD and industry for their 
progress, especially for significantly reducing flyaway costs, 
but we still have a long way to go. We need to overcome these 
remaining challenges, and we need to do it quickly. A fully 
mission capable F-35 is vital to our national security.
    So I want to thank all of our witnesses for being with us 
today, and I look forward to an open and candid discussion.
    Thank you. I yield back.
    Mr. Norcross. Thank you. To the chairman of Readiness, Mr. 
Garamendi.

    STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN GARAMENDI, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM 
        CALIFORNIA, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS

    Mr. Garamendi. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    I am going to take a deep breath and try to contain my 
anger at what is going on here. The F-35 is the most expensive 
program in the history of the Department of Defense, and the 
sustainment costs are expected to exceed $1.2 trillion over the 
life of the program. The program is over budget, it fails to 
deliver on promised capabilities, and its mission capability 
rates do not even begin to meet the service thresholds.
    It seems that the case of this industry solution to many of 
these problems is simply to ask the taxpayers to throw money at 
the problem. That will not happen. The easy days of the past 
are over. The hard days going forward are that this issue must 
be resolved, and it is going to get resolved in the work of 
this committee this year.
    So, don't expect more money. Do not expect to have more 
planes purchased than authorized in the President's budget. 
That is not going to happen. The 97 planes that were added over 
the last 7 years have simply created a bigger problem for the 
sustainment of this fleet.
    The F-35 is designed to generate a high sortie rates of 
fully mission capable aircraft that can operate and persist 
inside a threat envelope of our near-peer adversaries. You have 
just heard the concerns of my colleagues. With 20 years into 
this program, and we have not achieved that goal.
    The propulsion system sustainment for this aircraft is not 
meeting requirements. On the good-news side of the ledger, the 
engine's mission capable rate is higher than 94 percent. That 
is great. The engine's ``time-on-wing'' rate also exceeds 
requirements, and that is good.
    So I then have a third--I have a hard time understanding 
why the Joint Program Office forecasts that a greater than one-
third of the F-35 fleet will not have a serviceable engine by 
2030. A full third of the aircraft will simply not have an 
engine.
    Now, we do know that the engine repair system is not 
meeting capacity goals. And the recent engine power module 
issue resulted in nine unscheduled engine changes during the 
2020 Air Force deployment. Why?
    Is this the function of not having the required repair 
capability and capacity at our organic repair facilities?
    Are we missing the right tooling for the ground support 
equipment? Do we need better access to technical data? The 
answer is yes to each and every one of those. I want to hear, 
fully, the answers to those questions. I will tell you once 
again the status quo is unaffordable, it is unacceptable, and 
it will not continue.
    Turning to aircraft availability. The mission capability 
rate objectives are 90 percent for the Air Force, 85 percent 
for the Navy, and 85 percent for the Marine Corps. Yet, we have 
seen a stable, non-mission capability for supply [NMCS] rate in 
the high teens. This NMCS rate alone makes it impossible for 
the services to achieve their readiness objectives. And what 
are we doing to address this? We are buying more planes. And 
the sustainment rate continues to fall.
    I want to hear from the witnesses today, beginning with Ms. 
Maurer, on the health of the supply chain, the parts of the 
system. I want to hear about ALIS [Autonomic Logistics 
Information System] or ODIN [Operational Data Integrated 
Network]. Have we simply changed the name and maintained the 
same problem? Our problems are a function of not spending--are 
our problems a function of not spending enough money on spare 
parts and repair capability?
    Twenty years into this, and we still have not figured out 
how to maintain the planes. What the hell is that all about? We 
don't have the intelligence to understand that these planes are 
going to need to be maintained? And we didn't bother to set up 
a system to maintain them? Not in the depots? Not in the field? 
Come on now. This is not going to continue.
    The Joint Program Office briefed me on the readiness rates 
of the recent Air Force F-35 combat deployments. That is 
commendable. I question, however, whether achieving high 
readiness in one location creates a lack of readiness somewhere 
else. Are we simply stealing parts from somewhere so we can 
keep something going otherwise? Probably so.
    The supply system, could it meet the demand signals of 
large-scale combat operations? The answer is, no, it cannot. So 
the most expensive platform ever in the Department cannot 
sustain a large combat operation. Well, that is really 
brilliant.
    The full mission capability rates for the F-35A, F-35B, and 
C are 54 percent, 15 percent, and 7 percent. Ponder that for a 
moment. Yeah, it can fly, maybe two-thirds of the time, but it 
can't do what it is supposed to do all of the time or even half 
of the time. And for the Marine Corps version 7 percent of the 
time. What is that all about? Why are we in that situation 20 
years into this?
    Affordability. Shall we talk about that? You have heard 
from my colleagues already on this. 2019 GAO report said that 
steady-state projected costs of the aircraft would exceed 
affordability constraints for each of the three services. In 
fact, and we are going to hear about this shortly from Ms. 
Maurer, the GAO reported in 2019 that the Air Force would have 
to reduce sustainment costs--the Air Force would have to reduce 
sustainment costs by 43 percent, the Marine Corps by 24 
percent, and, got good news, the Navy by only 5 percent in 
order to afford their end-state production goals.
    I understand the GAO has revisited these issues, and we 
will hear about it. And I would be surprised if it is any 
better now than it was in 2019. So we will hear about that.
    We are going to need to know how we are going to drive down 
these costs of sustainment. Shall I repeat that? How are we 
going to drive down these costs? I don't see our generals who 
have all the stars on their shoulders here, but they better be 
listening because they are going to hear this again when their 
turn comes up.
    It is going to be some hard decisions being made on this 
program. We are not going to let it go any longer with a lot of 
happy talk. That is not going to happen. So, let's get on with 
it.
    Ms. Maurer, thank you so very much for your report. It is 
not happy bedtime reading designed to put somebody to sleep. It 
kept me awake most of the night. If you notice that the 
chairman of the Readiness Committee is upset that the 
chairman--this chairman, not this chairman, but the previous 
chairman simply added to the burden of readiness by allowing 
the plus-up of additional aircraft, 97 aircraft added to the 
fleet without a sustainment plan. Increasing the burden on 
those planes that were supposed to be in the fleet and 
sustained.
    We got a problem, ladies and gentlemen. And we are going to 
do work on it.
    With that, I yield back.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Garamendi can be found in 
the Appendix on page 78.]
    Mr. Norcross. Thank you. The ranking member from Readiness, 
Mr. Lamborn.

STATEMENT OF HON. DOUG LAMBORN, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM COLORADO, 
           RANKING MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS

    Mr. Lamborn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I also want to thank 
the witnesses here today that are responsible for delivering, 
operating, and sustaining the F-35. Our Nation's adversaries 
are advancing their military capabilities at an alarming rate. 
It is more important than ever that we maintain our advantage 
against these peer and near-peer countries. Critical to our 
advantage will be the fifth-generation F-35 warfighter. While 
we are currently flying 400, plans include the procurement of 
close to 2,500.
    Over the past several years, this committee has focused on 
both the affordability and availability of the F-35. From a 
readiness perspective, we must ensure that the F-35 capability 
is sustainable. As noted in the statements of both Pratt & 
Whitney and Lockheed Martin, I appreciate the efforts underway 
to address these challenges, but it is clear more work needs to 
be done by all stakeholders.
    We need a ready deterrent in our F-35 platform, yet 
readiness metrics including mission capable and fully mission 
capable rates are concerning. While trending in the right 
direction, they are still below the services' established 
objectives. GAO has identified several factors and challenges 
to F-35 readiness, including the supply chain, the engine, and 
the Autonomic Logistics Information Systems (ALIS) supporting 
operations, planning, supply chain management, and maintenance.
    Engine availability is a critical piece to this puzzle, as 
is the delayed standup of depot capacity. I look forward to 
hearing from our witnesses today how they are working together 
to address these challenges.
    The F-35 is a vital national security investment with a 
planned life cycle of 66 years. I am concerned that estimated 
lifecycle sustainment costs continue to increase. While 
procuring the F-35 capability is vital to national security, we 
must ensure that we can afford to employ it well into the 
future. On this point, time is of the essence. It will be is 
more difficult to reduce sustainment costs as the fleet of F-35 
aircraft grows.
    I hope to hear today how the team is working to ensure the 
Navy, Marine Corps, and Army can afford to fly the F-35 and, 
specifically, how all stakeholders are working together to 
address the cost gap between projected costs and affordability 
constraints.
    I am committed to continuing our investment into the F-35 
platform and fifth-generation capability because I believe it 
is necessary to maintain our advantage against adversaries like 
China. But it is also clear that sustainment challenges exist. 
If our industry stakeholders don't succeed in quickly driving 
down the sustainment costs of the F-35, I fear critics of the 
program will be dealt a stronger hand in their calls to gut the 
program.
    So I encourage all stakeholders involved--the services, the 
Joint Program Office, and the contractors--to get on the same 
page when it comes to sustainment and affordability.
    Thank you to the witnesses for their time. I look forward 
to today's discussion.
    And I yield back the balance of my time.
    Mr. Norcross. Thank you. And just as a note, we are 
expecting votes somewhere 10:30 to 11 o'clock. As I understand, 
we have three votes. So with a little bit of luck, hopefully, 
we will be able to work that in between the panels.
    As I mentioned, we do have two panels. And the first panel 
before us today includes from GAO the Director of Military 
Structure and Operational Issues, Ms. Diana Maurer.
    We also have with us Mr. Gregory Ulmer, the Executive Vice 
President for Aeronautics for Lockheed Martin Corporation. When 
we were down viewing the facility, everything is a year ago, 
but it is probably 18 months now.
    And Mr. Matthew Bromberg, President of the Military Engines 
for Pratt & Whitney.
    And as I understand, Ms. Maurer, you will begin. Thank you.

  STATEMENT OF DIANA MAURER, DIRECTOR, MILITARY STRUCTURE AND 
      OPERATIONS ISSUES, GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE

    Ms. Maurer. Thank you very much. Good morning, and I am 
pleased to be back before both subcommittees again today to 
talk about GAO's work on F-35 sustainment and affordability. 
And my brief remarks on this panel will focus on sustainment 
where there have been some positive developments, but there 
remains a significant amount of work ahead.
    First, some--some encouraging news. Mission capable and 
fully mission capable rates for the F-35 show continued 
improvement; fewer aircraft are being grounded for lack of 
spare parts, and average repair times have decreased. However, 
the program is still not meeting key goals in these areas, and 
significant sustainment problems remain. All 11 F-35 units we 
spoke with reported that supply chain challenges continue to 
drag down readiness. They also struggle to maintain the 
aircraft because they don't have access to the necessary 
technical data.
    ALIS, the logistics information system for the F-35, 
continues to be difficult to use and prone to error, creating a 
culture of workarounds that undermine trust in that vital 
system. DOD has taken some key first steps in replacing ALIS, 
which is encouraging. But that effort still lacks the complete 
strategy, there remain significant, unresolved intellectual 
property issues, and most notably, it will be several years 
before ODIN fully replaces ALIS.
    We also found that units are pulling engines off planes 
more frequently than expected, and it is taking 70 percent 
longer than planned to repair key engine components. As a 
result, there is a repair backlog. At a current trend, if 
unaddressed by 2024, 1 in 8 F-35s will have been grounded for 
lack of engines, growing to over 40 percent by 2030.
    Addressing these and other sustainment problems require 
close collaboration between OSD [Office of the Secretary of 
Defense], the Joint Program Office, the services, and the 
contractors. At GAO, we have 19 open recommendations to the 
Defense Department that if fully implemented could help with 
the current and future sustainment problems.
    I look forward to discussing those issues and others during 
question and answer. Thank you very much.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Maurer can be found in the 
Appendix on page 80.]
    Mr. Norcross. Thank you. Mr. Ulmer.

  STATEMENT OF GREGORY M. ULMER, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT OF 
                  AERONAUTICS, LOCKHEED MARTIN

    Mr. Ulmer. Thank you, Chairman, good morning. Chairman 
Norcross, Chairman Garamendi, Ranking Member Hartzler, Ranking 
Member Lamborn, distinguished members of the committee, I 
appreciate the opportunity to testify on behalf of Lockheed 
Martin and our industry partners to provide you with an F-35 
program update. And thank you for your interest in the program.
    Please know our employees and those throughout the supply 
chain recognize our responsibility to deliver this weapon 
system to our warfighters with the most advanced capability and 
highest readiness levels to keep them safe as they protect our 
Nation. At this time, I would like to ask that my full 
statement be included as part of the record.
    If I can leave you with three takeaways today, they are 
that Lockheed Martin is fully invested in reducing F-35 
acquisition and lifecycle costs to keep the program affordable, 
maintaining a technological edge to keep the F-35 a step ahead 
of our peer threats, and increasing availability to ensure the 
fifth-gen fleet is an ever-ready deterrent for our Nation and 
its allies.
    To begin, I would like to directly address a major area of 
concern from our customers: operational and sustainment costs. 
Lockheed Martin is applying the full weight of our talent and 
ingenuity to root out F-35 sustainment costs. In the last 5 
years, we have invested nearly $400 million to drive 
sustainment costs in production and increase readiness 
performance across the fleet. We must continue to reduce these 
costs further.
    However, we cannot accomplish this alone. We must attack 
sustainment costs as an integrated enterprise: Lockheed Martin, 
Pratt & Whitney--Pratt & Whitney, industry, and the government.
    In addition to addressing manpower and material cost, we 
believe the most effective way to achieve these results is to 
establish long-term sustainment partnerships that eliminate the 
cumbersome annual contracting process and provide more 
stability for investment.
    We must also continue to advance the F-35's capability to 
keep pace with near-peer threats. When Lockheed Martin 
delivered Block 3F jets with the initial operational 
capabilities, these aircraft metrics exceeded all key 
performance parameters for the program.
    Now, the program is focused on delivering cutting 
technologies and advanced capabilities as part of our 
modernization program to ensure that the F-35 continues to 
advance ahead of the threat.
    There are two key pieces to modernization today. Block 4, 
which includes upgrades that add high advanced capabilities and 
weapons. And Technical Refresh 3 or TR3, the hardware that adds 
additional processing power, memory, and an open systems 
architecture to the aircraft to ensure the system can manage 
those Block 4 capabilities required.
    TR3 has experienced cost overruns due to supplier 
challenges, COVID impacts, and government-directed changes. To 
address these challenges, we have conducted a root cause 
analysis and instituted a robust remediation plan that includes 
foregoing fee, such that it can be reinvested to buy down some 
of the cost overruns to date.
    Block 4 has also suffered delays, and we are partnering 
with our customers and suppliers to ensure we remain on the 
critical path to deliver capabilities as our warfighters 
desire.
    We are investing Lockheed Martin dollars along with our 
customer investments to advance the F-35's capabilities focused 
on increasing its role in joint all-domain operations. We 
[have] demonstrated the F-35's unparalleled ability to act as 
an elevated sensor, seamlessly sharing information in a 
networked battlespace. The F-35 is delivering capability far 
beyond any legacy fighter and has the systems necessary to 
adapt to the changing threat landscape and to continue to serve 
as the backbone of the U.S. fighter fleet.
    On readiness, we continue to make progress on increasing 
the aircraft's availability. The U.S. Air Force recently 
returned from 18 consecutive months in the CENTCOM [U.S. 
Central Command] area of responsibility where they flew more 
than 1,300 sorties with an average mission capable rate 73.5 
percent, with many periods of time operating at 80, 90, and 
even 100 percent mission capable rate at some points during the 
deployment.
    While the F-35 is delivering for our customers in the 
field, it is also driving economic growth here at home in the 
United States, employing thousands of Americans in high-paying, 
high-technology jobs. The U.S. supply chain alone comprises 
more than 1,800 companies, a thousand of which are small or 
disadvantaged businesses.
    Lockheed Martin overall has been a champion of suppliers, 
especially small and vulnerable businesses during the COVID-19 
pandemic. In the first quarter of this year, we averaged more 
than $430 million weekly in accelerated payments to our supply 
chain partners, with a focus on small and vulnerable businesses 
to ensure that they could continue their important work and 
remain at work during the pandemic.
    The F-35 demonstrates the strength of American 
manufacturing and preserving the critical technical workforce 
for our Nation. Additionally, the F-35 is providing alliance-
based deterrence. By its very presence, the F-35 changes 
adversarial plans and behaviors. The F-35's unprecedented 
interoperability to support operations is transforming how 
coalition forces train, fight, and win. The F-35's ability to 
act as a sensor as well as a shooter creates an unmatched costs 
per effect with limited defense dollars. The ability to perform 
multifunction not only saves taxpayer dollars, but more 
importantly, saves lives.
    It is a privilege to be part of the F-35 industry team. And 
on behalf of Lockheed Martin, I thank the members of this 
committee, and the men and women of our U.S. military and their 
families for their selfless service to our Nation.
    Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Ulmer can be found in the 
Appendix on page 108.]
    Mr. Norcross. Thank you. Mr. Bromberg.

STATEMENT OF MATTHEW F. BROMBERG, PRESIDENT, MILITARY ENGINES, 
                        PRATT & WHITNEY

    Mr. Bromberg. Thank you. Good morning. Chairman Garamendi, 
Chairman Norcross, Ranking Member Lamborn, Ranking Member 
Hartzler, and members of the House Armed Services Committee, I 
appreciate the opportunity to testify today on behalf of the 
37,000 associates in Pratt & Whitney.
    Since my last testimony, Pratt & Whitney has had three 
major accomplishments. First, despite the pandemic, we produced 
159 engines in 2020, which was more than contract. And Chairman 
Norcross, thank you for your comments. I will share them with 
the team. It was a tremendous dedication by the team. And 
today, there is a buffer of 50 engines in final assembly.
    Second, we have qualified 75 percent of the F135 parts that 
were sourced from Turkey, and we are on track to complete all 
transitions by Lot 15. Incidentally, 80 percent of those parts 
have been sourced in the United States, creating high-paying 
important aerospace jobs.
    And, finally, despite a recent drop in availability, the 
fleet maintains mission capability above 95 percent.
    At the same time, we have also had several challenges. 
First, engine deliveries were late to contract by on average 15 
days. There are two reasons: COVID disruptions and quality 
findings. The COVID delays, fortunately, are largely behind us. 
However, we need to redouble efforts on production quality.
    Due to our quality management system, these findings did 
not, I repeat, did not impact engine safety or reliability 
because they were corrected prior to delivery. However, we need 
to improve quality in order to improve production stability and 
costs. And at that end, we have funded and launched a quality 
improvement program that will reduce the findings by 40 
percent, improving stability and reducing costs.
    Second, we are seeing cost pressures across production and 
sustainment. Production costs with a headwind is a result of 
COVID and Turkey. In response to COVID, Pratt & Whitney took 
actions, drastic actions, to reduce structural costs. However, 
the timing on aerospace recovery and its impact on the supply 
chain is uncertain. In addition, the directed removal of Turkey 
from the program will increase engine costs by 3 percent.
    And, lastly, sustainment costs are increasing as we catch 
up on sustainment spend, activate the depots, and start working 
more engines.
    We recognize that affordability is the most pressing 
challenge facing the program, and we are committed, committed 
to reductions. Our successful ``war on costs'' program, which 
reduced engine costs by 50 percent through Lot 14, will provide 
a blueprint to overcome the production headwinds. And 
sustainment cost reduction can be and will be achieved by 
leveraging experience from other programs.
    In particular, the F119 playbook will help us reduce engine 
maintenance costs by 50 percent through health monitoring, 
repair development, and depot productivity tasks.
    Our final challenge is engine availability. While the F135 
met mission capability targets, availability declined in 2020 
due to a power module shortage. The primary driver was a 
delayed standup of depot capacity which led to a backlog of 
depot work. In early 2020, corrective actions were identified, 
projects funded, and we are making progress. We are on track to 
double depot output in 2021, and to double it again by 2023. At 
the same time, we need to do more to improve availability.
    While the F-35 exceeds reliability targets, continued 
investment in the Component Improvement Program is critical. 
Second, the global F135 fleet is spared at less than half of 
other programs. More spares would include higher availability.
    And, finally, sustainment spending has been lower than 
required. We need to urgently fund additional depots and spares 
stock.
    Looking forward, it is time to fund an upgrade program. 
Even though the F135 is the most capable fighter engine in 
production, the Joint Strike Fighter is already placing a 
higher demand on the engine than anticipated. In the near 
future, air vehicle demand for power and thermal management 
will exceed engine capability.
    To support future needs, we just completed a roadmap for a 
low-cost, low-risk spiral engine upgrade program. An upgrade 
will not only improve warfighter capability, but will also 
provide substantial lifecycle cost reductions.
    In conclusion, we acknowledge and own the current 
challenges. We are confident that the actions in place will 
improve delivery, quality, and depot production. I see a strong 
enterprise alignment on addressing these challenges, and we are 
committed in keeping the F135 available, capable, and 
affordable. Thank you again for the opportunity to appear 
before you today. My complete testimony has been submitted to 
the committee for the record, and I look forward to your 
questions.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Bromberg can be found in the 
Appendix on page 131.]
    Mr. Norcross. Thank you for your opening statements. I am 
just going to ask one question to try to keep things moving, 
then we can come back to it. I just want to bring to your 
attention, I am sure you have all seen it, the Bloomberg 
Report, which is indicative of others. The F-35 overrun means 
$440 million tab--U.S. taxpayers and allied partners will be 
absorbing $444 million overrun for the F-35. We are talking 
about the TR3. These are headlines, obviously, that the public 
is reading along with us.
    Mr. Ulmer, let's start with you. When it comes to the 
supplier on this particular item, who made that selection? Was 
that Lockheed? Was it the government?
    Mr. Ulmer. It was Lockheed Martin with conjunction with the 
government.
    Mr. Norcross. So, we have heard from the opening statements 
and others some of the very real issues that is facing this. 
You know, the capabilities that that alone with Block 4 are the 
ones we all know we are going to need. What is your assessment 
of where that program is now given the discussions we have 
already had and moving forward?
    Mr. Ulmer. Chairman, there are really three elements, 
primary factors to the cost overrun. The first has to do with 
the performance of L3Harris. The second has to do with COVID 
impact. We have had some COVID impact. And the third has to do 
post-contract award. We had some required technology changes to 
the original design content that we had to change.
    In terms of addressing these issues, Lockheed Martin has 
formed a cross-industry, as well as JPO [Joint Program Office] 
program office, working group team focused on performance with 
L3Harris, in particular.
    Lockheed Martin, last summer, I defined a new 
organizational construct to address on TR3 implementation 
directly. So I removed that from the development program and 
put an organization around a focus on TR3 execution. We 
embedded Lockheed Martin subject-matter experts with L3Harris. 
We conducted biweekly reviews with the JPO in terms of 
performance--on L3Harris' performance to include a very 
detailed 30-, 60-, 90-day, as well as entire program 
integrative master plan. And we track our performance with 
that.
    We also have senior executive reviews on the TR3. Just 
about a month ago, the team met with Senior Acquisition 
Executive Stefany to give him a status as well as Admiral 
Moran. So we continue to be very laser-focused on that effort 
to ensure that we continue to manage the program.
    I would say with the implementation of these activities 
since last fall, we have very successfully stabilized costs as 
well as scheduled performance on the TR3 program.
    Mr. Norcross. So you talked about that starting last fall. 
When did it come to your attention that this was going off the 
tracks, that the costs and scheduling? And why wasn't that 
arrived at in an earlier date for the correction? Because I 
hear what you are doing is correcting measures, that is great. 
But what could you have done to identify this and fix it 
earlier?
    Mr. Ulmer. We identified this as a red program in October 
of 2019, and we began to implement corrective action at that 
time. The really significant focus occurred over last summer 
relative to the implementation of bringing additional subject-
matter expertise beyond L3Harris' capabilities and subject-
matter expertise.
    Mr. Norcross. Are you comfortable with those corrective 
measures? Would you be able to address this moving forward?
    Mr. Ulmer. Yes, Chairman. The fact that we have seen 
stability in terms of performance since December timeframe, in 
terms of costs, schedule, and performance, and we are meeting 
our programmatic milestones on the program, I am comfortable 
with where we are at on the program today.
    Mr. Norcross. Obviously, we have quite a long way to go. 
And this is so significant from what we need in warfighter. At 
this level, we can't discuss it. But I want to turn it over to 
our Ranking Member Vicky Hartzler for questions. Thanks.
    Mrs. Hartzler. Thank you. Ms. Maurer, you talked about you 
have several recommendations in your report to help with 
sustainment. Could you just go over some of those and summarize 
those--what you recommend? And give an assessment of based on 
what you are aware of, the changes that Lockheed Martin and 
Pratt & Whitney have made, are they progressing along those, 
have they accepted those recommendations, or where do we still 
have gaps, do you think?
    Ms. Maurer. Sure. Thank you. Yes, so we have a number of 
open recommendations to the Department of Defense on a number 
of different fronts on sustainment issues. I would like to 
highlight just a couple of those that we have flagged as being 
priority recommendations for the Department.
    Mrs. Hartzler. Thank you.
    Ms. Maurer. Like one of the first things that is of primary 
importance when you are talking about ALIS and their transition 
to ODIN is having performance measures in place both for ALIS 
and its eventual replacement, knowing when it is actually 
achieving success.
    That will help a problem that we have heard about for 
years, that ALIS is getting better, but it never seems to be 
good enough. Well, you need to have some measure of success. So 
that is important.
    Mrs. Hartzler. So have they implemented those measures yet? 
Did they have performance measures in place yet?
    Ms. Maurer. They do not have those performance measures for 
ALIS. They are starting to put them into place for ODIN. So 
that is encouraging.
    Mrs. Hartzler. Okay.
    Ms. Maurer. Another recommendation I would highlight is the 
importance of developing an intellectual property strategy, and 
a more--which would include the Department gaining an 
understanding of what technical data it has access to and what 
technical data it feels it needs to successfully sustain the 
system. This is a recommendation that dates back to 2014. They 
have still not implemented it. We think it is vitally important 
to many different aspects of the sustainment enterprise, not 
just ALIS and ODIN, but other aspects as well.
    Mrs. Hartzler. Okay.
    Ms. Maurer. And a third one I would highlight is defining a 
clear strategy for managing the overall supply chain. We have 
seen progress on this. Since we recommended this back in 2019, 
there is a business case analysis under way in the Joint 
Program Office. It has not been fully implemented. We think 
that is vital, because we need to have a fully effective and 
truly global supply chain to support what our warfighters need 
as well as what our allies need who are part of this program as 
well.
    Mrs. Hartzler. Great. Thank you.
    Mr. Bromberg, I know you are working really hard to try to 
address some issues with the engines. And could you explain a 
little bit about your partnership with Tinker Air Force Base 
Depot and how that works with the F-35 engine, what is driving 
some of the recent delays in the engine maintenance, and what 
steps you are taking to try to stand up this issue as well as 
the timeline that you see going forward to address those repair 
issues?
    Mr. Bromberg. Yes, ma'am. All good questions. So with 
Tinker, we have a public-private partnership. We have a long 
history, and we have multiple programs where that partnership 
is different.
    For the F135, Pratt & Whitney is the propulsion integrator. 
We provide plans and forecasts, we provide support equipment, 
we provide technical data, and subject-matter expertise 
training. The heavy maintenance center provides the floor 
space, they hire the technicians, they train them, and they 
deploy them to the work. And, of course, the Joint Program 
Office funds both of us separately. So that relationship is 
working. I, General Kirkland, General Fick, we are committed to 
improve that interconnectivity, those touch points so that we 
have no gaps and no handoffs. And I think that we have made 
tremendous progress in light of the power module change, which 
I will get into, at improving that.
    We are leaning in as well, Congresswoman. Over the past 3 
years, we have increased the size of the Pratt & Whitney team 
down there by 80 percent. We are adding significant leadership 
and supervision, and we are going to put additional resources 
down there as necessary to work side by side, shoulder to 
shoulder with the maintainers to ensure that they have the best 
capability, the best tools, the best technical data to overhaul 
the power modules.
    To your second question, what happened? It is a good 
question. In 2019, when I was here testifying and all the years 
prior, we were on a firm footing. We had mission capability 
rates in excess of 97 percent, the engine reliability was then 
and still is now exceeding specification, and the production of 
removals, the refurbishments down in Tinker, were keeping up 
with demand and turnaround time was fast.
    And so as we are looking at that firm foundation, we 
weren't worried about Turkey exiting the program, taking a 
depot out of the sustainment network, and we weren't worried 
about sustainment spend that was being reallocated to other 
higher priorities in the program. In retrospect, we should 
have.
    So what happened in 2020? Well, COVID impacted us. We lost 
a quarter of productivity. But we also found with a heavy 
concentration of refurbishments of engines showing up at 
Tinker, we weren't ready. We weren't ready with the necessary 
support equipment, the necessary technical data, and that 
caused a backlog, a traffic jam. This was recognized early in 
2020. And, again, General Kirkland, General Fick, Pratt & 
Whitney, we addressed it very quickly with several courses of 
action.
    Over the past 12 months, we have caught up on almost all 
the support we have acquired to support every engine down 
there. There is a few items I have to deliver by June. We have 
added an engineering team there to provide all the technical 
knowledge necessary for them to continue working. We have put 
over 2,000 hours of training down to the Tinker team.
    We will put another 3,000 hours by the end of the year. And 
we are moving more and more people down there to assist in the 
maturing and development of the floor space. And we are 
starting to see the benefits.
    In the first quarter of 2021, output was twice what it was 
last year. And we predict by the end of this year, we will have 
twice the amount of output out of Tinker as we did in 2020, and 
it will double again in 2023.
    So we are confident we are on the road to recover. It will 
take a few years to clear that backlog, but we are going to 
maintain mission capability rates of 95 percent. We are going 
to improve the productivity of the heavy maintenance center, 
and we are going to expand the depot with all these lesson 
learning--these lessons.
    Mrs. Hartzler. Just real quickly, you said you had the 
problem--or you didn't have the technical data. Have you gotten 
that now?
    Mr. Bromberg. Yes, ma'am, the technical data is there. It 
is always a moving target----
    Mrs. Hartzler. Okay.
    Mr. Bromberg [continuing]. Because as you learn more about 
the engine, you are always developing new technical data. But 
they have the technical data that is there.
    Mrs. Hartzler. Okay.
    Mr. Bromberg. The equipment and data that was holding us up 
in 2020 is not holding us up today.
    Mrs. Hartzler. Gotcha. Thank you. My time is up. Thank you. 
I yield back.
    Mr. Norcross. Chairman Garamendi.
    Mr. Garamendi. There are so many things that are screwed up 
here that it is hard to find a focus. It seems to be no single 
answer. I want to go into ALIS and ODIN in more detail. The 
information we received is that this transition is a neat name 
change, but that it is not actually working. Who is responsible 
here? Is this the responsibility of Lockheed Martin, Mr. Ulmer?
    Mr. Ulmer. Chairman Garamendi, the ALIS to ODIN transition 
is being run and integrated through the Joint Program Office. 
Lockheed Martin is not responsible for the development or 
integration of the ODIN system. We are responsible for 
supporting, as a member, in support of the Joint Program 
Office. In particular, we were asked to build a new base 
station, so think a new processor for the ODIN system. We 
achieved that milestone last September.
    There was a congressional requirement to meet that 
delivery, and we were very successful in that regard. So we 
were able to reduce, for example, the weight of the ALIS system 
to the new ODIN system by about 70 percent. We were also able 
to improve the efficiency based on new processing power of the 
new computer by about twice. And then from a footprint 
perspective, we were able to reduce about 90 percent of the 
footprint requirement. That is just the hardware aspect of 
ODIN. Then the intent would be to load the new software 
architecture in programs, applications on top of that new 
hardware.
    And Lockheed Martin is not responsible for the development 
or the integration of that. That is being run through the Joint 
Program Office.
    Mr. Garamendi. So you got rid of the refrigerator and 
brought in a suitcase?
    Mr. Ulmer. Yes, sir.
    Mr. Garamendi. And we appreciate that. It is a piece of the 
puzzle. I will ask the Joint Program Office about their piece 
of it. What role does Pratt & Whitney have in the transition to 
ALIS to ODIN?
    Mr. Bromberg. Yes, sir. We live today the engine health 
monitoring and logistics inside ALIS. We will live tomorrow 
inside ODIN. We have developed a statement of work necessary to 
transition the capabilities that we need from ALIS into ODIN. 
We will finalize that contract this year and work side by side 
with Lockheed Martin and the Joint Program Office to conduct 
the transition.
    Mr. Garamendi. Thank you. In your testimony and in the GAO 
report, the supply chain is a constant piece of the questions. 
In addition to what was just answered with regard to the 
question that Mrs. Hartzler brought to us, the supply chain is 
not only a system, but it is also the bits, parts, pieces that 
go into it. Some of that is for the manufacturing of the 
airplane. The rest--some of it is also for the sustainment. I 
want to talk about the sustainment side of this supply chain. 
Specifically, are there sufficient parts, pieces, and other 
equipment--not equipment, parts and pieces available on a 
timely basis for the sustainment and the repair of the 
various--of the platforms?
    Mr. Ulmer. Chairman, I will take a shot at answering that 
on behalf of the enterprise. It is not a simple response. There 
is many elements relative to sustainment for the platform. From 
a spares, there is a capacity issue. We have not--the 
enterprise has not, for example, for organic depot standup for 
the spares and repairs of material, the program early in the 
development days kind of slowed that process down. And we were 
not going to stand up the depot organic repair capability until 
about the 2030 timeframe.
    We as an enterprise decided about 3 or 4 years ago to 
accelerate that. And today we are on a path in support of that 
acceleration. So today we have stood up 32 of 68 depots, 
planned depots for F-35. And by the end of 2024--so 
accelerating 6 years--we will have stood up all 68 depots.
    So that helps from a repair capacity. From a spare 
capacity, we need to continue as an enterprise both organic, 
OEM [original equipment manufacturer] support, as well as 
international content support to support the demands of the 
fleet in terms of the quantities to support the fleet.
    Mr. Garamendi. Mr. Bromberg.
    Mr. Bromberg. Yes, sir. So I can break it down in a similar 
fashion that Mr. Ulmer did. In terms of the parts that we use 
to refurbish the engines, we have plenty of stock on the shelf 
today. There are no part shortages that are holding up the 
power modules. However, we have to be diligent about stocking 
ahead of need so I can clear this traffic jam and prevent 
another one from occurring down the line. That is a priority.
    Second, we support equipment. And as I indicated, we were 
behind support equipment in early 2020. We are right on track 
where we need to be now. And we have ordered $200 million of 
support equipment ahead of contract. So when the contract 
comes, we are ready to deliver it to the heavy maintenance 
center and the other depots around the world.
    And as Mr. Ulmer said, repair development, we are 
accelerating that as we speak. We have developed over 250 
critical depot repairs for the heavy maintenance center. And by 
the end of the year, we should double that.
    So right now supply chain is not a concern for Pratt & 
Whitney, but we need to stay vigilant to ensure that we get 
ahead of need.
    Mr. Garamendi. Ms. Maurer, in your report you spoke to this 
issue of spares and the decline--or the decline in the 
percentage of spares required, and now an increase in the 
percentage of spares. Could you elaborate on that?
    Ms. Maurer. Sure. At the end of the day, the program gets 
what it pays for in terms of spare parts. So as currently 
constructed, the program pays for a non-mission capable supply 
rate of about 15 percent, which means they pay the contractors 
to provide enough spare parts to ensure that planes can fly 85 
percent of the time, absent any other problems. So that sort of 
guarantees sort of a ceiling to any kind of availability for 
the aircraft.
    There clearly are not enough spares to go around because 15 
percent is the target. The actual numbers have been coming 
down. And our report is down to 16 percent, but that is still 
above what the goal needs to be.
    There also continue to be challenges with the global aspect 
of this. Obviously, there are many different contractors around 
the globe who participate in the program. Those spares need to 
move seamlessly to all of the customers. That has not happened 
yet. There is still an open recommendation we had to the 
program dating back to 2019, and that continues to be a 
challenge for the program as a whole.
    Mr. Garamendi. In your review, did you determine that the 
shortage of spares is one of the elements in the availability 
rates?
    Ms. Maurer. Absolutely. That is certainly part of what goes 
into why you are not seeing even higher levels of mission 
capability, just simple lack of spare parts. Maintenance is 
also an issue as well.
    Mr. Garamendi. Mr. Bromberg, in our discussion yesterday, 
you spoke to this issue, and you recommended a significant 
increase in the availability of spares. Could you elaborate?
    Mr. Bromberg. Let me provide distinction. When I answered 
your previous question, it was the piece, parts, spares that we 
use on the shelf to refurbish the engine. If we think about the 
entire enterprise that Ms. Maurer was just referring to, we 
had--Congress bought a program from an engine perspective that 
wanted an engine at a certain reliability. We are exceeding 
that today. We got to be vigilant [inaudible] and make sure we 
continue to exceed it. But that engine is the most reliable 
engine Pratt & Whitney has ever produced. It is exceeding 
program targets.
    And then we built a sustainment infrastructure to take the 
power modules and refurbish them as they come in and out. We 
are behind. I indicated we are behind, but we will catch that. 
We have got our commitment as an enterprise, the Joint Program 
Office, the heavy maintenance center, Pratt & Whitney, we are 
working overtime to ramp up that learning curve.
    In the middle are the spare engines required to plug the 
holes as an engine moves in and out of the operating theater. 
This program was constructed with 12 percent spare engines and 
modules. That is about half of what all my other engine 
programs were constructed. Very, very lean.
    When everything is efficient, the engine's at reliability--
I am going to be at capacity at Tinker here in the next couple 
of years--the system, if everything is running perfectly, will 
work. But the past couple years or so is that is a very lean 
spares ratio. And if we want to maintain availability from an 
engine perspective, we recommend that we plus-up that number 
spares engine at least for a period of time as we get up the 
learning curve. COVID, Turkey, learning curve disruptions has 
taught us that that is a really lean number, and we will 
probably not maintain the availability and readiness that we 
all want.
    Mr. Garamendi. So with regard to the engine, if everything 
is perfect, we are okay. But my experience, perfection is not 
found in the human experience. And, therefore, you are 
recommending that we buy more engines?
    Mr. Bromberg. Yes, sir----
    Mr. Garamendi. I----
    Mr. Bromberg [continuing]. For a period of time.
    Mr. Garamendi [continuing]. Just one more question, Mr. 
Chairman, then I will yield back here.
    The cost of the engines is about $12.3 million. And after 
2,000 hours, the repair is about $5.1 million, and after 4,000 
hours it is $7.7 million. And if we fly the plane for 8,000 
hours, we will have bought that engine three times over in 
maintaining it. It is an interesting situation. I suppose this 
plane is designed to fly 8,000 hours. Is that correct, Mr. 
Ulmer?
    Mr. Ulmer. That is correct, Chairman.
    Mr. Garamendi. So, with regard to the engine, just to 
maintain it over that 8,000 hours, we will have spent as much 
money as purchasing a new engine. Interesting relationship.
    Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Mr. Norcross. Thank you.
    The ranking member from Readiness, Mr. Lamborn.
    Mr. Lamborn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Bromberg, you mentioned the power module issue. What 
specifically is Pratt & Whitney doing to fix that problem, the 
growing repair issue problem with the power module?
    Mr. Bromberg. Yes, Congressman. So, as soon as we 
recognized that we had a challenge in early 2020, we started 
devoting tremendous resources.
    First, we ordered all the support equipment that would be 
necessary for 2020, 2021, and beyond. So all that support 
equipment has been delivered to the heavy maintenance center 
for this year, with the exception of a few pieces that will be 
delivered by June, and we are ordering in advance of the need 
for the heavy maintenance center for 2021 and beyond.
    Secondly, we put a full team of engineers on the ground in 
Tinker, working side by side with the maintainers, so that they 
could help them work through engineering questions and move 
modules through the maintenance center.
    And, finally, we have dedicated a tremendous amount of 
engineering resources at Pratt & Whitney to provide improved 
tech data, work instructions, so that they can continue to 
learn and produce power modules at a much faster rate.
    These efforts are all now starting to show the benefit. 
Last year, an average engine would be work-stopped for 
technical data or support equipment, on average, 30 to 40 days. 
This year, those work-stops are down to less than 5 days. So we 
are making huge progress at training, maturing, and getting the 
power module throughput that we need.
    Mr. Lamborn. Has the expected life expectancy of the power 
modules problem been solved with these steps you have taken?
    Mr. Bromberg. So, just to clarify, Congressman, the 
reliability of the engine, the reliability of the power module, 
is exceeding specification. It is exceeding the requirements. 
It is incredibly reliable. My challenge is just to clear the 
backlog, the traffic jam in Tinker, which we will do side by 
side with the heavy maintenance center. So----
    Mr. Lamborn. Okay. Thank you.
    Mr. Bromberg. Yes.
    Mr. Lamborn. Mr. Ulmer, what is Lockheed Martin's view of 
the need to share intellectual property with the Department of 
Defense?
    Mr. Ulmer. We absolutely do need to share that intellectual 
property. Today, per the contract requirements, we provide the 
intellectual property and the appropriate data licensing.
    Last year, we were asked to propose a proposal for 
provisioning and cataloging data to support on the sustainment, 
and we responded in response to that proposal and submitted 
that proposal. Awaiting the Joint Program Office response to 
that.
    Mr. Lamborn. So the DOD shouldn't have any complaints on 
this question. Is that true?
    Mr. Ulmer. We are providing the IP [intellectual property] 
and data rights per our contract requirements.
    I mentioned the depot stand-up, the 32 of the 68. I know of 
no data or tech issues associated with that. We have been 
supporting that requirement to the satisfaction of the depot 
stand-up.
    I think there are desires for additional cataloging and 
provisional data, and we will respond to that as an industry. 
Lockheed Martin does not own all the intellectual property or 
data rights for all of the material, and so we will continue to 
work with the government to support the government's 
requirements.
    Mr. Lamborn. And you said a minute ago ``per contract'' or 
``per contractual obligations.'' Was that contract poorly 
written in the first place? Because there have been complaints 
about the amount of data-sharing.
    Mr. Ulmer. Yeah, I think the customer desire for tech data, 
intellectual property data rights has changed over the life of 
the program, and so the requirements have changed. And I think 
today the government desires more access to intellectual 
property and data rights.
    Mr. Lamborn. And will Lockheed Martin supply that?
    Mr. Ulmer. Yeah, we will propose and supply that data as 
the contract, you know--we will contract to supply that data.
    Mr. Lamborn. Okay.
    Ms. Maurer, I want to finish up by giving you the chance, 
now that you have heard the different give-and-take from the 
two industry partners here, do you have any comments on the 
responses that you have heard so far?
    Ms. Maurer. Yeah. Thank you.
    I think what you are hearing is a nice illustration of how 
the program actually operates, right? The Joint Program Office 
and the services and OSD set the construct, and the contractors 
execute.
    There have been some problems with execution. To some 
extent, that is expected with any kind of system as complicated 
and sophisticated as the F-35. But that said, it is really--
this is a government-driven program.
    So a lot of the problems that we are hearing about today in 
terms of sustainment are really rooted in the program's 
inability to focus on sustainment when it should have. Now, a 
lot of the things we are talking about today, in terms of 
affordability, data rights, supply chain, should have been 
decided 10, 15 years ago, and they weren't. And so, with a high 
degree of concurrency in the program, we are now having to dig 
ourselves out of a very deep hole that should never have been 
created in the first place.
    Mr. Lamborn. Okay. Thank you.
    Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Mr. Norcross. Thank you.
    And to the chairman of Seapower from Connecticut, Mr. 
Courtney.
    Mr. Courtney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    And, again, just to follow up your comments earlier, back 
in March of 2020, when Governor Lamont in Connecticut, like all 
of the Governors, was ordering a shutdown, a lockdown in 
response to COVID, it coincided with Under Secretary Lord's 
designation of critical infrastructure for defense contractors, 
including Pratt & Whitney in Connecticut.
    So those workers still had to show up even though there 
were big challenges with PPE [personal protective equipment], 
and, obviously, it was a much scarier situation in terms of 
just trying to even understand, you know, the threat and the 
production levels that Mr. Bromberg indicated. Again, really, 
those workers just, you know, totally performed and did their 
job and really deserve everyone's, you know, appreciation.
    Ms. Maurer, I just want to go back to the intellectual 
property issue again. On pages 9 and 10 of the GAO report, 
again, you talked about a survey that was done, I guess, of all 
the depots and different maintenance facilities, and that came 
back, it seemed like, still as a, sort of, number one concern.
    Can you talk a little bit just in--what does that mean? I 
mean, in terms of not having the access to that, how does that 
delay things or, you know, add to cost? I mean, how does that 
play out?
    Ms. Maurer. Sure.
    So, for our most recent review, we reached out to 11 
different forward-deployed units that have F-35s, and we wanted 
to get the perspectives of people who are working on the lines. 
So these were line maintainers and commanders and pilots and so 
forth.
    One of the things we heard from them, that there was 
frustration in their ability to fix the airplane when something 
went wrong. Many times they would spot a problem, and, from 
their experience in working with other systems, they could kind 
of tinker around with things and fix other systems. With the F-
35, they didn't have the technical information or sometimes 
even the tools to make those changes. So they had to pull 
components off the aircraft and ship it out to a depot, and 
that is where the majority of the actual substantial 
maintenance is being performed.
    So what we are hearing from users on the front lines was 
that, if they had access to more technical data, access to more 
of the specialized equipment, they would be better able to 
address some of the lower-level maintenance problems. Now, we 
didn't get into all the technical details on that, but that 
sort of jives with some of the things we have heard from 
talking to units in the past as well.
    Mr. Courtney. And we are seeing in, sort of, new programs 
coming through the Air Force that, in fact, they are 
restructuring the contracts to sort of have greater control, 
right, of the intellectual property? Is that correct?
    Ms. Maurer. Yeah, we have seen that in some of the other 
programs. There are certainly tradeoffs with doing that. 
Technical data is not free.
    Mr. Courtney. Right.
    Ms. Maurer. So, as part of the contract negotiations, there 
would be a cost involved. So that would be something that we 
would want the JPO to certainly examine.
    And I know that there are discussions within OSD and other 
parts of the Department now to bring more of the sustainment of 
the F-35 organic into government and take some of the 
responsibilities off the contractors.
    Mr. Courtney. So what Mr. Ulmer described is sort of, you 
know, incremental movement, as far as, you know, dealing with 
this issue, again, because, as you point out, this is something 
you guys have been flagging since 2014.
    Ms. Maurer. Yes.
    Mr. Courtney. I mean, if you did a survey today, you know, 
of those frontline facilities, I mean, would they say, you 
know, problem solved or, at least, problem is in the process of 
being solved? Or is it still too, kind of, clunky in terms of 
what is happening?
    Ms. Maurer. I think what we would hear and what we heard in 
the most recent review is the problem has not been solved, from 
their perspective. It is clunky. If they want to get 
information on how to fix something, they have to work, sort 
of, indirectly. They have to talk to someone higher in command 
and get to a contractor and get the information, have it fall 
back down.
    Their desire on the front lines would be to be able to do 
it themselves to a greater degree. Obviously, that involves----
    Mr. Courtney. Right.
    Ms. Maurer [continuing]. Tradeoffs with contracts and 
money, and, you know, it is not an easy or obvious solution.
    But what we are hearing from the front lines is, they would 
like to have more technical data and they are able to do more 
of the maintenance than they are currently allowed do.
    Mr. Courtney. Well, you know, again, we heard from the 
opening statements and certainly the press reports that, you 
know, we have a challenge here that people have to work 
together to address. And when the President's skinny budget 
came over and showed that the top line for the Department as a 
whole is going to have certainly some downward pressure, 
frankly, you know, there is no other choice but, you know, 
people have got to sort of change in terms of how this program 
operates, if it is going to be at all sustainable.
    I yield back.
    Mr. Norcross. Thank you.
    And virtually we have the gentleman from South Carolina, 
Mr. Wilson.
    Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Chairman Norcross.
    And we appreciate the witnesses' being here today.
    And, Mr. Ulmer, how is calculating the sustainment costs of 
the fifth-generation fighter and its internal components 
different from calculating the sustainment costs of the fourth-
generation aircraft? What recent improvements has Lockheed made 
to reduce the total cost?
    Mr. Ulmer. Thank you for the question, Congressman.
    When we look at sustainment for the F-35, we really break 
it up into three elements. Lockheed Martin is responsible for 
about 39 percent of the O&S [operating and sustainment] costs 
for the airframe; the propulsion system is approximately 13 
percent; and the U.S. services are the remainder.
    Over the last 5 years, with the Lockheed Martin content 
that I am responsible for, the 39 percent I have been able to 
reduce by about 44 percent over the last 5 years. Our models 
are predicting we are going to reduce that another 40 percent 
in the next 5 years going forward.
    There are many different aspects of how we do that, how we 
make that improvement. We have talked about some of them 
already. The sparing, Lockheed Martin has gone at risk to 
procure spares in front of the requirement of the contracts 
such that they are on the shelf when necessary.
    We are also very focused on repair turnaround time for the 
supply that we are responsible for. So we have established 
performance requirements in contracts with our suppliers to get 
in front of those requirements. We have seen significant 
improvement in terms of repair span reduction and repair cost.
    Also very focused on the diagnostic and prognostic systems 
on the aircraft. When the aircraft was originally fielded, we 
were getting false alarms, if you will, from the system, 
identifying items that needed to be removed when, in fact, they 
weren't. And in the probably 5 to 6, 7 years ago, that was on 
the order of 60 percent false alarm. We are north of 90, 95 
percent of cleaning that up as well.
    We have mentioned ALIS. We have had continuous improvements 
with quarterly releases with the ALIS system. We have seen 
significant accomplishment. So, for example, we have been able 
to--transferring one aircraft from one squadron to another used 
to take days. Now it takes minutes. We have seen the workload 
relative to the maintainers using the ALIS system and various 
different elements, a 40, 50, 60 percent improvement using the 
ALIS system.
    We are also very focused on reliability and maintainability 
improvement. So the elements that break on the airplane, we now 
understand what the top offenders are--the canopy, the Digital 
Aperture System cameras, the wingtip lenses--and we have 
corrective actions in play relative to improving those items. 
And those items that were on the top 5, top 10 list 2 or 3 
years ago are no longer on that list, as we have brought 
corrective action to that. And so we are continuously working 
to refresh that as well.
    So those are the kinds of things we are bringing to the 
enterprise relative to reducing cost from an O&S sustainment 
point of view on the program.
    Mr. Wilson. Hey, thank you for that update. That is very 
encouraging.
    Additionally, Mr. Bromberg, Pratt & Whitney has challenges 
with on-time engine delivery. While you have achieved on-time 
deliveries for the end of 2020, recent quality issues will 
drive up delivery delay times for 2021. What are you doing to 
ensure on-time delivery?
    Mr. Bromberg. Yes, Congressman. As I indicated, although we 
did deliver the required number of contracts and engines to 
contract in 2020, we were not happy with 83 percent of the 
engines being late. Again, I compliment the team, the supply 
chain team, for delivering in spite of a pandemic, but we have 
to improve that 15-day late on average.
    So we launched an investigation as to what the causes were. 
The causes in 2020 were COVID-related. That is largely behind 
us. Also, quality findings. As I indicated, those quality 
findings are caught and corrected inside Pratt & Whitney's 
factory or the suppliers, so they don't impact the field 
reliability or safety, but they need to be addressed.
    So, starting in 2019, we created and funded a $60 million 
quality improvement program that was staffed and launched in 
2020. And now it is going to be on a multiyear journey to 
attack the heavy-hitter parts, the ones that are causing us the 
most pain, and improve their manufacturing processes by 
bringing the latest Industry 4.0 manufacturing, automation, and 
digital tools so that we can have a much more stable, higher 
quality production system.
    That is what we launched in 2020. We are about a year into 
it now. We will start to see the benefits of it in late 2021 
and 2022.
    Mr. Wilson. Thank you very much.
    I want to join with Congressman Courtney in commending your 
workforce. All professional.
    Thank you, and I yield back.
    Mr. Norcross. Thank you.
    And now the chairman of Intel and Special Ops, Mr. Gallego 
from Arizona.
    Mr. Gallego. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Ulmer, I understand that the F-35 has made great 
strides in integrating capabilities among internal DOD sensor-
to-shooter systems, but I would like to know what your company 
has done to integrate F-35 capabilities among our allies, 
specifically our NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] 
partners.
    Mr. Ulmer. Congressman, the F-35 comes as a system to 
everyone that procures the vehicle. So the systems that the Air 
Force procures are the same for the allied nations. So the work 
that we have done relative to interoperability, joint all-
domain operations are inherent in our allied airplanes as well.
    We have seen extremely--we receive extremely positive 
feedback. For example, Norway and the Italians are currently 
flying NATO Arctic missions with their F-35s. The response and 
feedback we get from those customers are the interoperability, 
the integration, the gathering of the data from the sensor 
sweep, the data fusion, is game-changing, relative to their 
integration.
    The other thing that we are finding is, as they integrate 
with U.S. service forces, it is very seamless. So, as the U.S. 
Air Force comes and participates with the Norwegians, with the 
Italians, with the Israelis, very first deployments, co-
deployed together, interoperable, functioning well as a unit. 
So we hear very strong comments in regards to that.
    Mr. Gallego. Good. That is good to hear.
    Ms. Maurer, in your testimony, you noted an improvement in 
the amount of time it takes these companies to retrieve parts 
but highlighted the fact that wait times at overseas locations 
were problematic.
    Do these delays have a different impact on U.S. forward-
deployed aircraft versus our allies, who probably have 
everything at the depot right near them?
    Ms. Maurer. Right. So thank you for the question.
    And, generally speaking, things are working much better 
with the spare parts provision here within the United States, 
as you correctly noted, that those things are being delivered 
on an on-time basis.
    It is still a problem overseas. And that is a function of 
the complexity of the supply chain that the program, in 
partnership with Lockheed Martin, is trying to develop. They 
are trying to move parts across many different countries, and, 
because they did not take on this challenge years ago, they 
were late to the game in working through some of the mundane 
but really important issues of customs and moving things across 
national boundaries. That has created delays.
    I know when we were in the United Kingdom for some work a 
couple years ago, we heard some concerns from the Brits about 
their ability to obtain parts in a timely manner. We are 
encouraged that those numbers are coming up, but remain 
concerned that they are not yet meeting targets.
    Mr. Gallego. You know, it is scary to think that, in terms 
of our ability to project power or deter Russia, for example, 
it may be, you know, a customs issue that is, you know, 
stopping our planes from flying because we need a widget and we 
can't get that widget through customs.
    Like, I feel like that is something that is--you know, it 
is not even a hardware issue; it is just, like, a people issue, 
that you should have people actually focused on this to make 
this seamless.
    Ms. Maurer. Absolutely.
    And there is a related problem as well. We have an open 
recommendation on the spares packages that the Navy--or the Air 
Force and the Marine Corps use when they are deployed. They 
have not been properly aligned with the specific requirements 
of the systems that they are deploying with.
    They have been making progress on doing that, but that has 
created some challenges for getting those units ready for 
operational deployments.
    Mr. Gallego. Wow. Okay.
    Thank you. I yield back.
    Mr. Norcross. Virtually, Mr. DesJarlais.
    Dr. DesJarlais. Thank you.
    Mr. Ulmer, the F-35 modernization has been covered in 
detail. To bring this back to the basics, though, could you 
explain the current Block 3F as well as the TR3 and Block 4 
development, and then also provide the importance to the 
warfighter that comes from increased capability of Block 4?
    Mr. Ulmer. Yes, Congressman.
    So I have mentioned, really, two aspects of modernization. 
Tech Refresh 3: Think the new hardware required to host the new 
applications of new capabilities on the aircraft.
    There are really two elements that demand the Tech Refresh 
to the aircraft. One is obsolescence. We no longer have the 
ability to procure the parts of the previous processor to 
support the program of record.
    The second really is that increased processing power that 
is required relative to the new capabilities. Much like in our 
own lives, in terms of our smartphones, our computing devices, 
we continuously need to update the processing power associated 
with the applications that will be applied on the aircraft 
going forward. That really is the essence.
    There are three significant components that will be brought 
to the airframe in regards to the Tech Refresh 3. The first is 
the new core mission computer or the integrated core processor 
for the airplane. The second is the aircraft memory unit. And 
the third is the panoramic cockpit display that the pilot uses 
to understand the sensors and the information being provided to 
him. Those are the three main elements from a hardware update 
to the airframe.
    What is really interesting about that, it will not--once we 
get to the ability to implement that hardware on the aircraft, 
it will not require depot maintenance for the aircraft. The 
fleet field maintainers will be able to implement that hardware 
onto the airplane in the field.
    The second element is Block 4. Think the applications that 
will be applied on the new hardware. Those really evolve around 
several elements--electronic warfare, comm/nav 
[communiciations/navigation] communication on the airframe, 
weapons systems on the airframe, increased data fusion on the 
airframe. So those are really the key core capabilities that 
will be brought with new application that will be hosted on the 
new TR3 hardware.
    Dr. DesJarlais. Okay.
    Now, much has been made about the challenges within the F-
35 program, but little has been offered about the jet's 
performance in the air. How has the F-35 performed in live 
training exercises compared to other fighters? And what are the 
pilots saying?
    Mr. Ulmer. Chairman, we hear very strong comments in 
support of the F-35, comments such as ``game-changing,'' 
``quarterback,'' ``incredible situational awareness relative to 
the battlefield,'' ``increasing knowledge relative to the 
threat environment that the aircraft operates in.'' Not only to 
the benefit of an individual F-35, but the information that a 
single F-35 gathers is shared across air, land, and sea aspects 
so that they can see what the F-35 can see. So it really does 
help situational awareness, battlespace management. It really 
provides an advantage.
    In particular, we hear from our international partners, the 
interoperability aspects of the program. The fact that one 
nation can fly alongside of another coherently, very 
successfully, and interoperable, really provide an effect to 
the warfighter.
    The other thing that we learned from the F-35, it really 
helps the fourth generation as well. It is not just the fifth-
gen assets. So, because of the data sensing, the data fusion, 
the understanding of the battlespace awareness, the airplane 
really does help inform other members of the, I will say, 
package going into a situation. It informs them, you can 
operate freely in this space; you need to be in regards to this 
threat over here. It really does help situational awareness not 
only for the F-35 but everyone else around them.
    Dr. DesJarlais. All right. Well, I appreciate your 
testimony today.
    And, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Mr. Garamendi [presiding]. I thank you, Mr. DesJarlais.
    As you noticed, we are now voting, and Chairman Norcross 
has gone to vote. And so we are going to cycle in and out. I am 
going to announce the next three members to ask questions: Mr. 
Brown, Mr. Bergman, and Ms. Sherrill.
    Mr. Brown, you are virtual, so if you would take the floor.
    Mr. Brown. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    And my question is for Mr. Ulmer.
    We have heard a little bit about depot maintenance capacity 
today. It is my understanding, I think we all understand, that 
the Department is behind in standing up an organic depot 
maintenance facility for the F-35.
    Can you just tell us what Lockheed is doing on the repair 
side to help stand up the depots more quickly and when we will 
complete stand-up of all the depot repair lines?
    Mr. Ulmer. Yes, Congressman.
    Lockheed Martin, in terms of the depot stand-up, we have 
accelerated the stand-up. I mentioned earlier, our original 
plan was to stand up the 68 depots in support of organic F-35 
support into 2030. We are now accelerating that to have all 68 
depots stood up by the end of 2024.
    As we stand up those depots, the activities we undertake to 
help those really are information we have talked about: 
providing the technical data, the material required, the lay-in 
material required. We also inform the depots. We take subject-
matter experts and work with them shoulder to shoulder to help 
them understand as they begin the repair.
    We also work with our industry sub-tier suppliers as they 
will support different elements of depot stand-up. We bring 
them into the equation. We ask them also to provide the tech 
data, the subject-matter expertise, initial throughput support 
to ensure that the depot has the ability to take the technical 
wherewithal and the resources to execute that work.
    Mr. Brown. Thank you.
    Mr. Bromberg, I have a question for you. It is regarding 
the allocation of funding for modernization and sustainment and 
the allocation between the air vehicle and the propulsion 
system. And, you know, how would you describe it? Is it 
sufficient? Does it enable the kinds of upgrades that need to 
occur in the propulsion system, or are we sort of ignoring or 
neglecting the propulsion system as we prioritize the air 
vehicle?
    Mr. Bromberg. Yeah. Thank you, Congressman, for the 
question.
    You know, as the demands of the airframe and the tactics 
have evolved, fortunately the engine has been able to support 
it. However, we do need to focus funding on upgrading the 
propulsion system.
    Now, with the Joint Program Office and spending some Pratt 
& Whitney money over the past few years, we developed a roadmap 
that was submitted in March that will enable us to provide more 
power, more thermal management, better fuel burn, and enhanced 
thrust out of the existing F135. But that program is not 
funded.
    My concern, Congressman, to your point, is, if we don't 
launch that program, then we won't have the engine ready to 
support the Block 4.3 upgrades that are in front of us.
    Again, we have a path to do it. We can upgrade the F135 in 
a manner that maintains the unit cost we are at today, that 
supports the sustainment cost reduction, that will provide a 
module upgrade that can go right into the power module, the 
heart of the engine. We can insert it in production. We can 
insert it in sustainment. We can maintain the variant 
commonality and the partner commonality that this engine has 
supported.
    So we have a plan. We do need to get it funded so that we 
are ready for the need.
    Mr. Brown. Thank you.
    And my last question, for Ms. Maurer.
    You have discussed, and others have, the need to share that 
technical data. Mr. Ulmer mentioned it as part of what they are 
doing to assist in standing up depot maintenance capacity. You 
mentioned the lack of that data at the unit maintenance level.
    What specifically can or should we be doing differently to 
get the technical data where it needs to be on time?
    Ms. Maurer. Sure. So thank you for the question.
    I think first and foremost is that the Department needs to 
develop a clear strategy for the technical data it needs, make 
decisions about that, and then negotiate with the contractors 
to obtain that technical data.
    I think one of the fundamental problems that the program 
has faced for many years is that the program office has not 
developed a strategy to make strategic decisions about the 
level of technical data that they want.
    And Mr. Ulmer is absolutely correct; the Department's 
interest in technical data has changed over the years. When 
this program was first launched 20 years ago, the idea was that 
everything was going to be handed over to the contractors. 
Since then, there has been a change in view, but the strategy 
has not come up to speed with where the Department is right 
now. So we think that it is important for them to do that.
    Mr. Brown. Thank you.
    Mr. Chairman, I yield back the few seconds I have 
remaining.
    Mr. Garamendi. Thank you, Mr. Brown.
    We are alternating Democrat and Republican here. And, 
therefore, Mr. Moore is up next, and then I am going to turn to 
Ms. Sherrill. I see that Mr. Bergman left.
    So, Mr. Moore, if you are there, you are next.
    [No response.]
    Mr. Garamendi. Well, we are going to be flexible. Mr. 
Moore, one more time?
    [No response.]
    Mr. Garamendi. Ms. Sherrill, your turn.
    Ms. Sherrill. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    The first question is for Mr. Ulmer.
    Could you discuss some of the modernization efforts needs 
of the F-35? And is there anything more that needs to be done 
to keep up with the improvements in armaments in order to 
maintain superiority?
    Mr. Ulmer. Congresswoman, there is quite a robust weapons 
system update as part of Block 4. I didn't get into the 
details, but there are a series of weapons. I can get that 
information to you. I can take that action off the record. But 
there is a substantial effort relative to bringing additional 
weapons systems on board to the aircraft.
    [The information referred to can be found in the Appendix 
on page 192.]
    Mr. Ulmer. In addition, as part of Block 4, we are also 
allowing the ability to carry more internal weapons inside the 
airframe. We call it--today, it can carry six AIM [air 
intercept missile]--I am sorry--four AIM-120 missiles inside 
the aircraft in the stealth configuration. Part of the TR3 
Block 4 modification will allow us to carry two additional 
weapons internal to the aircraft as well.
    Ms. Sherrill. Thank you.
    And this is a question for both Mr. Ulmer and Mr. Bromberg, 
but I am happy to hear from Ms. Maurer about this issue as 
well.
    I am concerned, of course, about the sustainability and 
repair issues associated with the F-35 engines and the effect 
those issues have on mission capability. I believe current 
estimates show, without some sort of mitigation effort, that 
increased engine issues of increased complexity combined with 
the lack of repair resources leads to over 40 percent of our 
engines that do not have serviceable engines--40 percent of our 
aircraft.
    Further, our current rate of mission-capable aircraft are 
70 percent or below on all F-35 variants, with fully mission 
capable aircraft available at a rate of 54 percent or below on 
all F-35 variants, with the F-35C hitting only about a 7 
percent fully mission capable rate in 2020, according to the 
GAO.
    So, if that rate of 30 percent or more of the aircraft 
being non-mission capable today is sustained, and combined with 
the rate of 40 percent of nonoperational due to the lack of 
available engines in 2030, even with significant overlap, that 
implies the majority of our aircraft will be nonoperational or 
non-mission capable by 2030.
    So my question is this: What percentage of non-mission 
capable and non-full mission capable aircraft are due to engine 
issues?
    Mr. Bromberg. Do you want me to--well, I will start.
    So, again, it is a great question, and it covers many 
elements of the entire weapons system platform.
    From an engine perspective, we have maintained 95 percent 
mission capability. Now, we are not happy with the availability 
challenge we have, that there are some jets that don't have 
engines in it. I wake up every day concerned, if I don't have 
an engine in the jet, I don't get a pilot in the seat. That is 
not acceptable. So that is why we are working overtime.
    The cause, again, of the power module availability issue is 
the backlog, the traffic jam at Tinker. So we have plans in 
place to improve it.
    The numbers that you referenced, 40 percent degradation, 
that will not happen. The mitigation plans we put in place 
should keep us around 95 percent mission capability. And what 
we are now doing is trying to figure out how to accelerate that 
and how to move even faster and provide even better, higher 
mission capability.
    And we have plans in place to do that. As I indicated, it 
is about accelerating depot production by putting additional 
depot capacity on line and probably putting some more spares in 
the fleet initially. So engine----
    Ms. Sherrill. And about what percentage--as we are talking 
about non-mission capable and non-full mission capable 
aircraft, what percentage are due to engine issues?
    Mr. Bromberg. [Inaudible] I would have to come back to you 
and take the mission capability numbers for the engine and 
relate it to the airframe numbers. I don't want to misquote 
that, so I will take that as an action.
    Unless Ms. Maurer has that?
    Ms. Maurer. I know from the data that we collected as part 
of our report, we were showing that this was about 4 percent, 
roughly, of a contributing factor.
    So we would characterize this, it is definitely a problem 
now. It is a small ``p'' problem now. It will become very much 
a capital ``P,'' underlined, bold problem if sufficient actions 
are not taken now.
    We actually have an ongoing review currently that focuses 
specifically on the issue of engine sustainment. And we have 
been conducting audit work at the Joint Program Office and at 
Pratt & Whitney to kind of get behind some of the things that 
Mr. Bromberg discussed. And we will be publishing our findings 
on that sometime later this year.
    Ms. Sherrill. Thanks so much.
    And I am running out of time, so I will submit the rest of 
my questions for the record.
    Thank you, Mr. Chair. I yield back.
    Mr. Norcross [presiding]. Mr. Green.
    [No response.]
    Mr. Norcross. Congresswoman Speier, you are up next.
    Ms. Speier. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Let me start by asking Mr. Ulmer and Mr. Bromberg, how much 
money did you get from the Federal Government during the COVID 
crisis?
    Mr. Ulmer. Ma'am, this is Mr. Ulmer. We have not received 
any additional funds relative to COVID through the pandemic at 
this point.
    We have been tracking issues associated with labor loss, 
the different activities associated with the social-distancing 
requirements within our manufacturing system and our 
workspaces, but we have not collected any additional fees at 
this time relative to that.
    Mr. Bromberg. And from a Pratt & Whitney perspective, we 
also did not take any COVID relief funds.
    We did benefit from the Department of Defense program which 
accelerated progress payments. We took about $400 million of 
accelerated progress payments, and we used that to support our 
supply base. That was a very effective measure, as many of our 
suppliers were not able to withstand the pandemic impacts as 
well as Pratt & Whitney.
    So all of those funds came into Pratt & Whitney and 
directly to the supply base. But we received no COVID relief 
funds inside Pratt & Whitney.
    Ms. Speier. All right.
    To what extent have you been able to move your 
manufacturing of spare parts from Turkey? Each of you, please.
    Mr. Ulmer. Congresswoman, this is Mr. Ulmer. So we had 817 
parts that would need to be resourced out of Turkey. Today, 814 
of those spare parts have completed resource. Approximately 
half of those have been completely resourced, so we are no 
longer procuring those parts.
    There are a handful of parts that we reached agreement with 
the U.S. Government through the Joint Program Office that we 
will procure through the remainder of the contract that was let 
at the time the decision was made to remove Turkey from the 
program. Those are three main parts. Those parts are associated 
with the landing gear and the center fuselage. Those parts will 
end and complete their delivery in March of 2022.
    Ms. Speier. All right. Thank you.
    Mr. Bromberg.
    Mr. Bromberg. Yes. For Pratt & Whitney, we have 188 high-
technology parts that had previously been sourced in Turkey. 
These are some of the most critical parts in the engine. And 
the Turkey suppliers were high quality, low cost.
    Seventy-five percent of them have been qualified in new 
suppliers. Most of those are domestic here in the United 
States. We will have the remaining 25 percent qualified by the 
end of the year. And by the time we deliver Lot 15 engines, 
which will be in mid-2022, all those parts will be sourced 
domestically or in this new supply base, 20 percent 
international, but none of them in Turkey.
    Ms. Speier. Thank you.
    Ms. Maurer, I can't begin to tell you how appreciative we 
are of your work on evaluating the F-35.
    I was pretty alarmed by your comments that--two comments in 
particular: one, about the intellectual property; and, 
secondly, that by 2030, without some resolution of these 
problems, 800 engines, or 43 percent, of the F-35s will be 
grounded.
    Tell us what we need to do to make sure that doesn't 
happen.
    Ms. Maurer. Sure. Thank you very much, and we are always 
happy to support the Congress in F-35 oversight.
    And I think one of the first things that you and the other 
Members can do is to continue to have hearings just like this 
one to maintain attention and maintain focus and continue the 
oversight of this vitally important program. This is a $1.7 
trillion investment over a period of many years, so continued 
congressional attention is critically important.
    On the engine issue, I think as I mentioned earlier, this 
is currently a problem. We have ongoing work to assess whether 
the fixes that are underway right now are going to be adequate 
to head off the situation that, if unaddressed, the program 
will face in around 2030. So stay tuned for our results of that 
work later on this year.
    In regards to technical data, you know, we are a bit 
frustrated that our recommendations, going back to 2014, that 
the Department develop a strategic approach to its technical 
data needs, and then executing on that strategy, has not been 
implemented.
    We continue to have discussions with the Joint Program 
Office. They are starting to make some progress on it, but they 
have a long way to go. Access to technical data is an important 
part of sustaining this vital system, and we hope that they 
continue to make some progress there.
    Ms. Speier. All right. I only have 26 seconds left, so I am 
going to yield back. Thank you.
    Mr. Norcross. Thank you.
    Mrs. McClain.
    Mrs. McClain. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Ulmer, I am sure you are aware, and we have talked 
about it today, about the numerous reports over the past few 
years about the cost of the F-35 program.
    In my district, I want Selfridge Air National Guard Base--
one of my goals is to get the F-35 wing station there. But with 
the delays and the cost overruns of the program, right, 
especially the operations and the maintenance costs, this is 
making it difficult to bring the program and--to talk about the 
program for my district.
    My question is this. It is my understanding that the goal 
for fiscal year 2012 was for the cost per flying hour of the F-
35 was about $25,000. And I wasn't here in 2012, so I am trying 
to get a better understanding. What is that cost now?
    Mr. Ulmer. Congresswoman, first of all, just a little 
clarity around that number. So the target was $25,000 per 
flight hour by 2025 in 2012 dollars. Okay? So, as the program 
existed in 2012, that a cost per flying hour would cost $25,000 
by 2025.
    Mrs. McClain. Okay.
    Mr. Ulmer. In 2017, for a United States Air Force A model, 
the cost per flying hour was about $41,300. By this 2020, we 
have reduced that down to $33,300, about a 20 percent decrease 
in terms of cost per flying hour.
    And so we are very focused on continuing to support that 
reduction. I mentioned Lockheed Martin is responsible for about 
39 percent of that, the propulsion system is 13 percent, and 
the remainder are O&S costs that the services--fuel, support--
--
    Mrs. McClain. Sure.
    Mr. Ulmer [continuing]. Manning, et cetera.
    And so the elements that we are very focused on to reduce 
that cost per flying hour is the availability of spares; the 
availability and improvement of repair turnaround time; 
improved diagnostics on the airframe to really help the 
maintainer troubleshoot and turn the aircraft faster; increased 
prognostics performance on the aircraft, the prediction of when 
parts will fail on the aircraft; as well as reliability and 
maintainability improvements.
    So we know, we understand what the bad actors are, in terms 
of parts and pieces on the aircraft----
    Mrs. McClain. Sure.
    Mr. Ulmer [continuing]. And we are constantly working to 
improve those. Sometimes we will resource a part to a different 
requirement or specification. Sometimes it is bringing slight 
improvements to those items. But we have seen significant 
improvement in terms of reliability and maintainability on the 
airframe as well.
    So it is really a full-spectrum approach to get the cost 
out.
    Mrs. McClain. Do we measure that in--am I looking at it the 
right way in terms of cost per flying hour?
    Mr. Ulmer. Yes, ma'am. All those kinds of elements I 
talked, we have discrete increments and we understand how they 
apply to that cost per flying hour. And then we attack those 
different elements.
    Mrs. McClain. And we are on target to bring that down 
roughly by 20 percent? Is that what I heard you say?
    Mr. Ulmer. So, from the Lockheed Martin aspect, we see 
another 40 percent reduction in the next 3 to 4 years. But 
there are other elements across the enterprise we need to focus 
on.
    Mrs. McClain. Okay.
    Mr. Ulmer. And I have the ability--you know, industry has 
the ability to help the maintainer, the O&S service, relative 
to the actions I take. And they can take actions to help me. So 
it really is an enterprise approach to get cost out.
    Mrs. McClain. Thank you.
    My second question is: According to the GAO, the 
sustainment cost of the program will be about $6 billion over 
budget in 2036. What is Lockheed Martin doing to ensure the 
government is not overspending on this program?
    And I know you touched on it a little bit, but if we could 
just--if I could just get a better, simple understanding of it 
so I can take it back to my district and really fight to bring 
the program back to my district and give confidence.
    Mr. Ulmer. Yeah. A couple other thoughts really is: We, 
today, contract in annual increments relative to sustainment of 
the airframe. One of the things that we suggest we do as an 
industry and an enterprise is do more of a performance-based 
logistics over a longer period of time. And what that will 
allow for is industry to make longer, long-term investments 
relative to getting our suppliers, sub-tiers, ourselves, to 
make investments to bring reliability and maintainability 
improvements to the platform. That is another.
    The other are the elements I talked about relative to that. 
Also, the ALIS/ODIN--we really need to stay focused on reducing 
the time it takes to use those systems, the integration. We are 
also focused on reducing the contractor support footprint that 
co-deploys with our users.
    So we have seen improvement. We have more work to do with 
that as well. And we are very committed to getting, you know, 
boots on the ground off the ground. I would say, it is 
interesting, in the COVID world, we have learned how to do 
things remotely that we never knew we could before.
    Mrs. McClain. Sure. There is some silver lining.
    Mr. Ulmer. There is a little bit.
    Mrs. McClain. Thank you, sir.
    Mr. Norcross. The gentlewoman's time has expired.
    We have three more--Mr. Bergman, Mr. Bacon, and Mr. Moore--
and then we are going to transition to the next panel.
    But before I defer to Mr. Bergman, I have a question, just 
a follow-up on the Turkey question.
    The cost increase, we are collectively absorbing those. But 
when it comes to replacements--and I know that we heard from 
Mr. Bromberg--from a Lockheed perspective, how many of those 
new sources are domestic versus foreign?
    Mr. Ulmer. Chairman, I will have to take that for the 
record. I will get you an answer as soon as I can.
    Mr. Norcross. Okay.
    [The information referred to can be found in the Appendix 
on page 191.]
    Mr. Norcross. And I know we had this conversation. The 
parts that were already manufactured or in the system, my 
understanding, they are going to bleed out, be used until they 
are gone. Is that correct?
    Mr. Bromberg. Yes, Chairman. We are still using parts from 
Turkey until we shift over to Lot 15 next year. Lot 15 will 
have all new source parts, most of which are domestic.
    Mr. Norcross. If you could get us a list in terms of 
nondomestic in particular.
    Mr. Bromberg. Yes.
    [The information referred to can be found in the Appendix 
on page 191.]
    Mr. Norcross. And for Mr. Ulmer, are you bleeding out the 
parts also? We probably could come up with a better term, but--
--
    Mr. Ulmer. Yeah. So we are resourcing the parts. Fifty 
percent of those parts have already been resourced. So, today, 
the parts that are coming in in support are resourced parts.
    Mr. Norcross. So we bled out those, we didn't----
    Mr. Ulmer. Yes, sir. The remainder will be bled out or 
resourced between now and March of 2022. But the majority of 
those parts, I want to say--I think I mentioned earlier, 814 of 
the 817 have already been resourced. We just have to consume 
the parts on the shelf.
    Mr. Norcross. Thank you for defining that.
    Mr. Bergman.
    Mr. Bergman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    I have just kind of one quick question, although it 
appeared, really, in Lieutenant General Fick's testimony, and I 
know he is in the next panel, but I wanted to--here is the 
question.
    The Joint Simulation Environment [JSE]. Okay? If the Joint 
Simulation Environment is a pie and that pie is broken down 
into sections, what percentage of the pie, getting the JSE up 
and on line and fully functioning, what percentage of that pie 
sits in Lockheed's, you know, court, and what percentage of the 
pie sits in Pratt & Whitney's?
    Mr. Ulmer. From a Lockheed Martin standpoint, we are 
required to provide what is called the ``F-35 in a Box''--
thinks the simulation of the F-35 itself as a representation--
within the government lab known as the Joint Simulation 
Environment.
    I can't tell you--I don't know the other elements. It is a 
government-developed integrated lab----
    Mr. Bergman. Well, the reason I asked the question is, 
again, it was stated here and in some of the media, is that 
there were some issues. As you know, we are always going to 
hear, as long as we are on the face of this Earth, it is a 
software problem, it is an integration problem, it is a--
whatever. We got that. That is our future.
    I guess my question is: If we are being delayed with 
producing F-35s because the Joint Simulation Environment is not 
up and running, I need to know, where do we, as the elected 
body here, put the oversight and the emphasis so that pie, if 
you will, the JSE pie, comes complete and we are moving F-35s 
off the line, you know, production line, onto the flight line, 
into the battle?
    Mr. Ulmer. Yeah, I am interested in that as well. I want to 
see the success of the Joint Simulation Environment.
    I have provided that simulation for the F-35. I have also 
provided subject-matter expertise relative to that integration. 
I also provided the intellectual property and the data 
associated with that integration. So, the Lockheed Martin 
content I gave to the Joint Simulation Environment government 
officials such that they could help.
    Mr. Bergman. Is that--and, again, I am not trying to pin 
you down to numbers here. What you provided, is that half the 
pie?
    Mr. Ulmer. No, sir. I would say it is probably less than 
30, 20 percent of the pie.
    Mr. Bergman. Okay. And how about Pratt & Whitney?
    By the way, there is no--this is just more information-
gathering to find out what the whole pie looks like as we make 
decisions here.
    Mr. Bromberg. Sir, I am going to have to come back to you 
on that. I don't think Pratt & Whitney's engine is holding up 
the Joint Simulation Environment, but let me look it up and get 
back to you.
    [The information referred to can be found in the Appendix 
on page 192.]
    Mr. Bergman. Okay. I appreciate that. Thank you for that. 
Because we are all in this together.
    Mr. Bromberg. Yep.
    Mr. Bergman. Thank you.
    Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Mr. Norcross. Mr. Bacon.
    Mr. Bacon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a comment up 
front and then two quick questions.
    But, first, I want to commend the chairman, because I think 
you bring the right spirit to this discussion, and I don't see 
that replicated in all areas. So, I appreciate how you are 
responding.
    You know, at a time of growing contention over the 
viability of the program, I think it is critical that 
congressional oversight be based on fact, not overreaction and 
grandstanding. Unfortunately, the public interest and our 
national security are not well-served by a one-sided 
presentation. These attack lines are dangerous because they 
undermine public confidence in what is the most significant and 
consequential military modernization program for the United 
States, our allies, and freedom-loving nations around the 
world, and that is the F-35.
    So, I publicly agree with Chairman Smith when he said that 
``it is the job of this committee to ensure American taxpayers 
are getting a fair return on their investment, and we hold 
government and industry accountable for results.'' I could not 
agree more. This committee has pushed the F-35 to a better 
spot.
    But I think we have to acknowledge two sets of facts. The 
performance of the F-35 is unmatched. It is truly a 
transformational weapon and, in many aspects, is exceeding 
expectations. This point is universally acknowledged by pilots, 
maintainers, theater commanders, and our international partners 
who fly it. The actual 2019 contract unit flyaway cost for the 
F-35 have dropped below $80 million per copy and will continue 
to fall.
    But the second point is also true: The program is not 
perfect. It has maturing to do. But this is what I would like 
to stress: Every major aircraft program in recent decades have 
had aspects that have struggled when it was developed, and the 
F-35 is no different.
    But when all is said and done, the F-35 is unmatched. Its 
weapon system--it is the one weapon system that we have that 
can penetrate highly defended targets. And the F-35 is changing 
the balance of forces in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.
    So, we need to keep a balanced perspective. In its 
totality, this is a successful program with aspects that we 
need to improve. This is the weapon system that can penetrate 
the most dangerous air defenses in the world.
    So, I just want us to keep this thing in perspective. We 
have areas we want to improve, but in many aspects this program 
is excelling.
    So, I have two brief questions, just for my own 
satisfaction.
    The UAE [United Arab Emirates] sale, I support it. There 
are Members of Congress who are pushing back on it. I think it 
is going to be important for deterrence in Iran and for our 
partners to have this capability.
    But what will this do, as a secondary benefit, to the 
average unit cost, sustainment costs, and so forth? How will 
the UAE sale help us in this area?
    Mr. Ulmer. Congressman, at the time of the--if the 
acquisition goes through--and it is a government-to-government 
decision. I will respond to whether or not we have the ability 
to export and what configuration will be provided to the 
Emirates.
    But, at that point in the program, we are actually kind of 
coming down the back side of peak production. And so, the 
benefit will be, from an economic order of quantity, it will 
help increase the production quantity. And purely from a 
supply-and-demand aspect, that will help keep the recurring 
costs of the aircraft down in simple terms.
    I can get specific with you, I can take it for the record, 
relative to quantities at that point in time, their delivery 
profile, and the current contract deliveries, and I can I give 
you a more informed response in that regard.
    [The information referred to can be found in the Appendix 
on page 192.]
    Mr. Bacon. Obviously, the real value is the deterrence 
value in the Middle East with our allies and right across the 
street with Iran, but I think there is a secondary benefit 
here. I just wanted to make that point.
    Also, Mr. Ulmer or anyone else on the panel here, what 
feedback are you getting? We have produced over 600 aircraft, 
deployed them, many of our allies. What other feedback are you 
getting from our allies, as well as the services, in how the F-
35 is performing in its operational role?
    Mr. Ulmer. Chairman--or, I am sorry, Congressman, we were 
hearing----
    Mr. Bacon. I like the way you think. But go ahead.
    Mr. Ulmer. We were hearing, to your points that you have 
made, it is game-changing. The advantage that the F-35 is 
bringing is really situational awareness to the battlespace 
around it. The sensor sweep that it has, the very low 
observable characteristics allows it to get to places that 
other assets can't get to.
    We are finding secondary positive effects. So, the sensor 
sweep collects a lot of data. We have vignettes where our 
customers are flying operational missions, and the aircraft 
discovers threat or entities that we did not even know existed 
within the normal--actually, within or better than the current 
OODA [observe, orient, decide, act] loop within the system for 
detection of those kinds of threats.
    Mr. Bacon. When I served in the Air Force, I was working on 
aspects of those sensors and those links, so it is so great to 
hear.
    Mr. Ulmer. Yeah.
    Mr. Bromberg. I----
    Mr. Bacon. I know we are about running out of time, so I 
probably have to yield back.
    Mr. Bromberg. Oh, I was just going to add, from an engine 
perspective----
    Mr. Bacon. All right.
    Mr. Bromberg [continuing]. I haven't met a pilot that 
didn't want more thrust out of an engine, but they all say they 
love the thrust and power of an F135.
    The durability is unmatched. In fact, many pilots have 
complained that we will ingest and operate with a bird or other 
foreign object damage and keep flying. That keeps the pilot 
safe and the platform safe. So, it is fantastic performance.
    The last thing we hear is from the Marine Corps. The 
extremely fast, capable control system allows them to focus on 
their mission and landing the jet while the throttle is steady.
    So, we get very positive feedback. We have to stay diligent 
on upgrading the engine, but very positive feedback from an 
engine perspective.
    Mr. Bacon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Ms. Maurer. And just real quickly, Mr. Chairman, if it is 
okay?
    Mr. Norcross. Please.
    Ms. Maurer. When we talk to pilots as part of our work, we 
hear rave reviews about the F-35 when it is flying. And that 
underscores the importance of making sure that the system is 
sustained and is done in an affordable way.
    Mr. Norcross. Thank you.
    As Chief of Staff Brown said, we would all like to drive 
that Ferrari every day of the week, but sometimes you have to 
drive the Chrysler and the Chevy, and we love them all. And 
there is no question this is an incredible aircraft.
    The TR3 Block 4, when it comes on line, as projected now, a 
quarter-century has gone by since the development, and we are 
looking at those emerging threats that were not even envisioned 
when we started this program. And that is the challenge, as we 
all know.
    With that, Mr. Moore.
    Mr. Moore. Thank you, Chairman.
    I will briefly associate myself with the comments of 
Representatives Bergman and Bacon, first Bergman, when he said 
that we are all in this together--I believe that--and, second, 
with Representative Bacon.
    Thank you, Chairman, for allowing us to have a very 
productive conversation today.
    I am, obviously, very interested with respect to my 
district, Utah 1, and Hill Air Force Base, with the F-35 
program. And I am committed to making this a very, very 
productive conversation. To the committee, to the stakeholders, 
our team is ready to dig in and make this a positive for our 
Nation. And so, I really appreciate the concept behind, you 
know, let's--we have to keep this conversation productive and 
find the best way forward.
    And the point that I will make--and I can tell from the 
extra comments that were given by the panelists about 
feedback--that is the part that I also want to be able to 
bring. I have interacted closely with many of the airmen and 
the fighter pilots at Hill Air Force Base, and this plane is 
unmatched. This plane can simply not be beat. When they are 
flying into war, they want to be on the F-35.
    And so, we have sustainment and operational challenges that 
we need to address that will always happen when something new 
is brought on line. I will definitely do my part, and that is 
my commitment.
    So, Mr. Ulmer, let me jump in with as many questions as I 
can get in in my time.
    We have covered today the F-35 modernization in detail. Can 
you please explain Block 4 development and provide the 
importance to the warfighter that comes from increased 
capability of Block 4?
    Mr. Ulmer. Yes, Congressman.
    As I mentioned, really, Block 4 sits on top of the Tech 
Refresh 3 relative to the hardware requirements. So, think a 
new mission core processor as well as a new cockpit panoramic 
display for the pilot and a new memory unit, which will allow 
the airplane to save a lot of the data and the information that 
it collects.
    In terms of development, in terms of applications, really 
very centered around EW [electronic warfare], increased 
capability in the EW system, as well as communications, 
navigation, additional work on data fusion and the 
representation of that information not only to the crew but the 
other F-35s and other air, land, sea, and underwater aspects as 
well.
    It is also very focused in terms of infil/exfil of 
information. So, as the data is collected, some of that data is 
classified. The airplane has the ability to appropriately 
declassify and exfil that information to other aspects.
    Interoperability, improved performance in terms of 
interoperability.
    So those are the main tenets when we look at Block 4 
capability.
    Mr. Moore. Excellent.
    And continuing on with that, what are the plans for 
retrofitting the fleet of fielded F-35s with Block 4 capability 
change, Block 4 cut-in slips? And if it changes with the Block 
4 cut-in slips, then who foots the bill for any additional 
retrofitting that would be required there?
    Mr. Ulmer. The program still supports in-line production in 
Lot 15 timeframe, so think 2023. So, we are on track to deliver 
those aircraft with the TR3 hardware. There is no slip 
currently, as we speak, relative to those deliveries.
    The fleet modification really is customer by customer 
dependent, based on their own requirement. And so, there are 
several different COAs [courses of action] that have been 
established relative to different modification updates to the 
TR3 and the Block 4 configuration. I believe for the United 
States Air Force--but I need to take this for the record to 
clarify. But I believe the U.S. Air Force intends to update 
LRIP [low-rate initial production] 11 up, in terms of aircraft 
that will receive the modification. But I need to confirm that 
for the record.
    [The information referred to can be found in the Appendix 
on page 193.]
    Mr. Moore. And that is great. I appreciate your 
transparency there. So, thank you.
    A final quick question, Mr. Bromberg. What is being done to 
provide the additional overall capacity required to address 
recently discovered--some of the reliability issues with the F-
35 engine? And any comment towards catching up with demand.
    Mr. Bromberg. Yes, Congressman. So, starting in early 2020, 
we focused significant efforts on improving overhaul capacity, 
depot capacity down in the heavy maintenance center. That 
includes accelerating the ordering of the tooling required to 
be deployed to the floor. They have everything they need absent 
a few tools which will be delivered by June. We are ahead of 
that need. That included providing the right technical support 
and technical data so that they can move those modules through 
the heavy maintenance center. They have everything they need 
today, and we have a team down there to support.
    In addition, we are ordering tools in advance of need both 
with heavy maintenance center and other depots to come online. 
So, you are going to see progress here over the next few 
quarters as we double output in heavy maintenance center in 
2021 and double it again in 2023.
    Mr. Moore. Excellent. Thank you very much, Chairman. I will 
yield back. I appreciate the moment of time.
    Mr. Norcross. Thank you. And, unfortunately, because of the 
open environment we are in, we can't have that deeper 
discussion for all the members of these committees and, quite 
frankly, HAS [House Armed Services], please, be part of those 
classified briefings where we actually get into those 
challenges, those emerging threats, and what we can do.
    And, obviously, Lockheed is very much part of that next 
generation. Again, where we started 25 years ago and where we 
are today, it is an incredible craft, but it is always about 
that next step, who is coming at that. And we appreciate each 
of the witnesses today for bringing their perspective to this 
very challenging project and look forward to working with you 
again.
    So, Ms. Maurer, we will see you in a few minutes. From 
Lockheed Martin, Mr. Ulmer, again, we appreciate that. And Mr. 
Bromberg, and again, make sure the employees know, we 
appreciate it just as the warfighters do.
    With that, we are going to suspend so we can clean the room 
and come back with the second panel.
    [Recess.]
    Mr. Norcross. We are going to call the meeting back to 
order. We appreciate everybody working with us with the votes 
and certainly with the two panels. Generally speaking, we don't 
try to have two panels, but with the most expensive and complex 
program in the history of our country, well deserved and, quite 
frankly, many more.
    So, we now turn to our second panel of witnesses from a 
slightly different perspective, but certainly one that is 
absolutely critical for full understanding of some of those 
challenges. So, returning is Ms. Diana Maurer from GAO, who we 
heard from earlier. We also have with us Lieutenant General 
Eric Fick, F-35 Executive Office or PEO [Program Executive 
Office] as we know it. And Brigadier General David Abba, 
Director of Air Force F-35 integration program.
    As I understand, Ms. Maurer, you are going to go first, and 
we will go right down the line. If you would.

  STATEMENT OF DIANA MAURER, DIRECTOR, MILITARY STRUCTURE AND 
      OPERATIONS ISSUES, GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE

    Ms. Maurer. Great. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I am 
going to just take a couple of minutes to briefly discuss some 
of our main findings on F-35 sustainment affordability.
    As we heard and I think everyone here fully understands 
from the first panel, this is an incredibly expensive program. 
Total lifecycle costs for sustainment are estimated to be $1.3 
trillion. At the same time, it is also a very vital program. 
The F-35, for a number of years, has been described as the 
future of combat aviation with more than 400 systems fielded 
within the U.S. currently. You can safely say it is also the 
present of combat aviation in this country. So, it is 
critically important to get affordability and sustainment 
right.
    One of the things that we have been tracking pretty closely 
over the last several years are the cost growth in those 
sustainment costs. And rather than the trend line going down, 
we are concerned that sustainment costs are continuing to grow. 
They are getting higher rather than lower. And that is a 
problem. And that is despite more than a decade of concerted 
efforts to bring those costs under control. There have been a 
number of initiatives and efforts to do that.
    Which raises the issue right away of affordability. And one 
of the things we did in our most recent report was look at the 
affordability targets that each of the services have 
established. In other words, how much the Air Force, the Navy, 
and the Marine Corps can afford to spend to sustain the F-35. 
And what we found there was, frankly, quite troubling.
    There are substantial affordability gaps between 
sustainment cost estimates and the amount of money the services 
say they can spend to sustain the F-35. In the case of the Air 
Force, that gap is 47 percent. So, the estimated costs are 47 
percent higher than what the Air Force says it can spend.
    To put that in context, if starting tomorrow Lockheed 
Martin and Pratt & Whitney announced that all spare parts for 
the program would be free for the rest of the program, that 
would still not be sufficient to close that gap. So, that is a 
substantial problem for the Air Force. There are also gaps for 
the Navy and the Marine Corps, but they are slightly smaller in 
size.
    The bottom line here is that services have a plane that 
they cannot afford to fly the way they want to fly it, at least 
in the long term. There are options to close that gap, and they 
are all relatively difficult.
    The first thing we recommended to the Department is that it 
take--that it continue its effort to squeeze cost savings out 
of the program. That is going to be challenging. This is a very 
mature program. There are limits to their ability to reduce 
sustainment costs just on cost savings alone, which led us to 
our second recommendations of the Department, that it take a 
hard look at the requirements for the program.
    And that is a variety of things, including the number of 
flight hours, the level of readiness the services are buying 
through its sustainment strategy, as well as the number of 
planes that it plans to purchase. There are significant 
tradeoffs. There are significant issues involved with the 
services and our partners in all of those. But we think it is 
vital for them to take a hard look at those requirements.
    Another option, of course, is to spend more. The 
sustainment targets were established by the services. We did 
not establish them in our own analysis. We used the services' 
numbers, so the Air Force, the Navy, and the Marines can decide 
to spend more on F-35 sustainment. That is going to involve 
billions of dollars and potentially crowd out other priorities.
    Congress has a critical role in this as well, because you 
have the power of the purse. Ultimately, the decisions on the 
number of F-35s to purchase, as well as the overall 
congressional interest in sustainment, will help drive the 
overall strategy. And one of the things that we suggest in our 
most recent report is that Congress pay close attention to the 
progress the Department is making in closing these 
affordability gaps when you are deciding on the number of new 
aircraft to purchase.
    Now, to be absolutely clear, GAO does not have a position 
on the number of F-35s that should be purchased, the level of 
readiness, the number of flight hours. Those are appropriately 
in the realm of OSD, the services, the Joint Program Office 
working in conjunction with Congress. But we do have an 
important role in providing the independent oversight to help 
inform those decisions.
    So, the bottom line is that the F-35 is absolutely vital to 
the national security of our Nation. It is vitally important to 
a number of our allies. So, it is also vitally important that 
it is capable of supporting our national security goals in an 
affordable way.
    Thank you very much, and I look forward to your questions.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Maurer can be found in the 
Appendix on page 80.]
    Mr. Norcross. General Fick.

   STATEMENT OF LT GEN ERIC T. FICK, USAF, PROGRAM EXECUTIVE 
    OFFICER, F-35 JOINT PROGRAM OFFICE, OFFICE OF THE UNDER 
      SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR ACQUISITION AND SUSTAINMENT

    General Fick. Chairman Norcross, Chairman Garamendi, 
Ranking Member Hartzler, Ranking Member Lamborn, and 
distinguished members of the subcommittees, thank you for 
granting me the opportunity to discuss the status and the 
future of the F-35 Lightning II Program.
    I am pleased to join General Abba from the Air Force 
Integration Office and Ms. Maurer from the GAO. The needs of 
our warfighting customers are at the heart of everything, and 
we certainly appreciate the feedback and analysis the GAO 
consistently provides as it too plays a key role in our 
collective success. Most of all, I am honored to represent all 
of the men and the women of the F-35 Joint Program Office, or 
JPO, and the global F-35 enterprise.
    Our people and partners continue to move the mission 
forward with passion and pride and continue to be solution 
driven. Because of their work, more than 625 aircraft have been 
delivered, 11 services in 9 countries have declared initial 
operational capability, and 6 services from 5 countries have 
conducted F-35 operational missions, bringing the world's most 
advanced fighter capabilities to bear from the Middle East to 
the Arctic.
    The F-35 we have today is showing exceptional performance 
in operations around the globe. General Abba is better 
positioned to relate those positive results from recent combat 
operations. But I will tell you that that undeniable 
performance, we know that tomorrow's engagements will feature 
significantly evolved and ever-advancing warfighting 
environments and must be supported by rapid weapons development 
and capability delivery timelines. Consequently, we need a 
capable, available, and affordable F-35 to outpace those 
competitors and prevail on the high-end fight.
    These three mandates--capability, availability, and 
affordability--are the focus of everything we do in the F-35 
JPO, and I am eager to discuss our efforts with you today, 
along with the successes we have had, and the challenges we 
face, and our plans for meeting those challenges head-on.
    First, I will talk about capability. As I mentioned before, 
the Block 3F capability in the field today is unmatched by any 
other fighter in the world. Our mandate is to preserve this 
warfighting edge as we continue to deliver and sustain this 
growing global fleet. We already know, however, that the 
Nation's enemies are not sitting still and in the coming years 
will field capabilities that will challenge today's F-35. 
Delivering the next-generation Block 4 capabilities is, 
therefore, essential.
    Just over 3 years ago, we started down a new path for 
capability, development, and delivery. Using this new paradigm, 
we delivered a number of high-priority capabilities to our 
joint and international warfighters in addition to fixes to 
dozens of other deficiencies.
    Our progress, however, has not been without obstacles. To 
enable the full Block 4 capability set, we must also deliver 
the underlying computational horsepower that we have been 
discussing today known as Technical Refresh 3 or TR3. 
Unfortunately, and as has been discussed, we have experienced 
significant TR3 hardware delays and cost increases which are 
actively--and are actively working with Lockheed Martin and 
their subcontractors to keep TR3 on track for Lot 15 insertion 
in 2023.
    Thanks to the efforts of a joint JPO and Lockheed Martin 
software independent review team, I am increasingly optimistic 
about our ability to cost-effectively deliver the remaining 
Block 4 capabilities.
    You will notice I use the phrase ``cost-effectively.'' This 
phrase is at the heart of everything we do at the F-35 
enterprise, as I see costs as our program's greatest threat. 
While we simultaneously focused on driving down costs across 
the development, production, and sustainment areas, we 
understand the sustainment affordability targets present both 
our greatest challenge and our greatest opportunity. 
Sustainment cost reduction, therefore, will continue to be my 
highest priority.
    The JPO, Lockheed Martin, and Pratt & Whitney team have 
made some significant strides with respect to costs per flying 
hour. Between 2019 and 2020, the U.S. Air Force F-35A costs per 
flying hour decreased 10 percent from $37,000 per flight hour 
to $33,300 per flight hour in base year 2012 dollars.
    We are far from finished with our affordability efforts, 
however, but I see these actuals as movements in the right 
direction. Working closely with the services and our cost 
analysts, we understand the four biggest drivers of sustainment 
costs, and we are actively getting after all of them.
    Finally, I would like to turn to availability. As we focus 
to driving costs down, we must simultaneously push the 
enterprise to improve F-35 mission capability rates, and even 
more importantly, F-35 full mission capability rates. The team 
continues to make progress, achieving about a 70 percent 
mission capable rate and 40 percent full mission capable rate 
across the enterprise last year, an improvement of 5 percent 
and 3 percent, respectively, over 2019. That is not acceptable 
to me. It is not good enough. I know we need to do better.
    We are working closely also with the Air Force Sustainment 
Center and Pratt & Whitney to get after the biggest driver 
right now, or one of the largest drivers right now, the F135 
power modules. We have put actions in place to move the needle 
in the right direction, and I am happy to talk to those as we 
get forward into my questions.
    Thank you for your time, thank you for your attention, and 
I look forward to your questions.
    [The prepared statement of General Fick can be found in the 
Appendix on page 149.]
    Mr. Norcross. Thank you. General Abba.

   STATEMENT OF BRIG GEN DAVID W. ABBA, USAF, DIRECTOR, F-35 
          INTEGRATION OFFICE, UNITED STATES AIR FORCE

    General Abba. Thank you. Chairman Norcross, Chairman 
Garamendi, Ranking Member Hartzler, Ranking Member Lamborn, and 
distinguished members of the subcommittees, thank you for the 
opportunity to discuss F-35 accomplishments, issues, and risks 
today on behalf of the United States Air Force.
    I am pleased to join General Fick and Ms. Maurer on this 
panel. I am proud of the relationship the Air Force has with 
both organizations; they are valued teammates, along with our 
industry partners from first panel, as we all work together to 
maximize the success of F-35.
    I would like to start by making one point as clearly as I 
can. The United States Air Force is absolutely committed to the 
F-35. The jet we have today has performed very well in 
operations our airmen have conducted around the globe. It is an 
exceptional platform that makes the joint and coalition team 
more lethal, survivable, and effective today, and it fills a 
critical capability need for the Air Force.
    But we are not paying for the F-35 to perform very well. We 
are paying for outstanding. We need to squeeze every ounce of 
capability out of the F-35 to compete, deter, and win in a 
contested to highly contested environments that our peer 
competitors have already fielded and are actively improving at 
a rapid pace today.
    The Air Force will ultimately possess and operate the 
world's largest F-35 fleet. As such, we will simultaneously be 
the program's most demanding customer and its staunchest 
advocate. The F-35A, due to both its warfighting capabilities 
and the large numbers we intend to procure, will be the 
cornerstone of the Air Force's fighter portfolio for decades.
    Highly contested Chinese and Russian warfighting 
environments define the challenges we need the F-35 to solve in 
order for it to serve as an effective cornerstone. 
Consequently, we need a capable, available, and affordable F-35 
to outpace these key competitors.
    Note the similarity in the areas of emphasis between the 
United States Air Force and the program office. We must get 
this right, not just for the Air Force, but for all the 
services and nations that operate the airplane.
    Starting with capability, the Block 3F F-35 we have today 
provides a significant capability leap over fourth-generation 
aircraft. F-35 from Hill Air Force Base completed successful 
consecutive Middle East combat deployments in October 2020.
    Over 18 months, Active Duty and Reserve airmen flew roughly 
20,000 combat hours, over 4,000 combat sorties, and employed 
just shy of 400 weapons in permissive and somewhat contested 
air domain environments.
    But as others have testified today, peer competitors are 
aggressively modernizing their forces faster than we have seen 
in many decades. Therefore, we need Block 4, enabled by TR3, to 
ensure continued relevance against China and Russia.
    Block 4 capabilities will increase our pilot's ability to 
prosecute targets, increase their survivability, enhance 
interoperability across the joint and coalition force, and 
improve sustainment. Additional schedule slips to either TR3 or 
Block 4 will increase risk to combat mission accomplishment and 
to our airmen.
    Turning to availability, the Air Force needs F-35 squadrons 
fully mission capable across a range of expected missions to 
prevail against peer adversaries under contested logistics 
during regional lower-scale contingency operations, and to 
produce sufficient readiness during peacetime training.
    While the Air Force faces several F-35 availability 
challenges, the two most urgent needs involve the F135 engine 
and the transition from ALIS to ODIN.
    As you have heard, F135 engine issues impact Air Force 
readiness today. Unscheduled engine removal rates and elevated 
repair scope for engine power modules are outpacing depot 
production capacity. As of yesterday, 21 total Air Force 
aircraft are grounded without a serviceable engine, 15 of which 
are otherwise flyable.
    With respect to affordability, the Air Force has a finite 
amount of resources to procure, operate, and sustain the F-35. 
The Air Force's primary affordability challenge is captured in 
the cost per tail per year sustainment cost metric. The draft 
GAO report aligns with Air Force analysis. Costs per tail per 
year estimates exceed current Air Force budget projections.
    If we cannot find ways to make F-35 sustainment 
significantly more affordable, we will be forced to make 
difficult decisions in coming years to meet our fighter force 
mix needs.
    In closing, the Air Force is proud of what our airmen have 
accomplished with the F-35. We remain committed to the aircraft 
as a cornerstone of our and many other nations' combat air 
forces for decades to come.
    As the program's most demanding customer and staunchest 
advocate, the Air Force is committed to working with our 
government and industry teammates testifying here today, and 
with the Congress, to ensure we get the capability, 
availability, and affordability we need.
    Thank you again for the opportunity to provide the Air 
Force perspective on this important program, and I will look 
forward to your questions.
    [The prepared statement of General Abba can be found in the 
Appendix on page 165.]
    Mr. Norcross. Thank you for your statement. Just to remind 
everyone, we will be shifting in and out. We have one vote 
left. So as others are returning, so for those online also, you 
understand when we are going back and forth.
    Affordability. We heard that affordability gap of 47 
percent. When we are talking about a program that exceeds a 
trillion dollars, these are very real numbers. And General 
Fick, cost certainly is a threat to everything, but we don't 
have pockets loaded with money. It is all about assessing risks 
and program priorities. And I know you understand that. But 
this is something that we are struggling with. And I assume you 
were watching the earlier panel.
    By the time TR3 and Block 4 come out, we are over a quarter 
century old from when we started development. The world looked 
very different in trying to anticipate what those threats were 
going to be, and challenges to this platform was a great job. 
But it obviously is not complete because the world changes 
every day.
    But in terms of threat to a program and costs and 
affordability, this is where I want to drive down my first set 
of questions. Because we understand that the A model, in 
particular, has an operational design maturity as it relates to 
the number of flight hours. We understand that.
    Can you explain to the committee, and I will start with 
you, Ms. Maurer, with an operational maturity that is virtually 
there, as defined by the A 35, and it is now, how is that going 
to impede the ability to start saving on sustainment when the 
model is there?
    How do you make those very significant cost savings that we 
are looking at, given your first example, saying if you got the 
part for free, we are still over it? Where does that come from? 
How do we drive down that cost if it is this mature?
    Ms. Maurer. That is an excellent question, Mr. Chairman, 
and it goes to the heart of some of our fundamental concerns 
about the program.
    You know, in preparing for the testimony today, I was 
looking back at some of the prior hearings. And there was a 
hearing on the Senate side 10 years ago, almost 10 years ago 
this month, where Senator John McCain asked then Under 
Secretary Carter a similar set of questions about driving down 
sustainment costs. And at that time his answer was if we don't 
bring down those costs, we are going to have no choice but to 
make very difficult decisions about the requirements.
    Unfortunately, sustainment costs have actually increased 
during that time period. So, we are at the point of having to 
make some very difficult decisions with the program. And one of 
the things about the program now being 10 years further on down 
the road is that many things have been baked into the program. 
The sustainment approach has largely been set. So, things like 
ALIS and the global supply chain and decisions about the number 
of spare parts and the number of excess engines we are going to 
purchase, that has all been established, that has all been 
baked into the process.
    So, it is going to be difficult and challenging to achieve 
cost savings while you are also trying to drive up mission 
capability rates. In the short run, you may actually have to 
spend more money on some of the sustainment challenges to bring 
that down. Which is why pursuing cost savings is a great part 
of any solution. We don't think that is going to be sufficient. 
And so, a hard look at both the requirements of the program as 
well as the affordability targets within each of the services 
need to be part of the solution.
    Mr. Norcross. So, when you--and I will get to you, General, 
when I have a moment. You talked about the affordability gap 
just before this, the three primary areas squeeze the costs. 
When we are talking about a mature platform, it is a little 
tough, but possible requirements. Well, we have already baked 
in at least through Block 4. We spend more. We are cutting 
airplanes.
    So, the first issue she brought up was squeezing costs. 
General Abba, how do we do that on this mature platform? And 
let's just focus on the A model now as not to break into some 
of the other challenges.
    General Abba. Yes. Mr. Chairman, we agree with the GAO's 
findings that we are not going to be able to reduce costs 
sufficiently because of the maturity issues that you talked 
about in order to meet our affordability targets.
    Mr. Norcross. So, that is a big deal. When I first had the 
honor of joining Congress, it was fifth gen almost exclusively. 
You hardly heard anything else. Yet, just a few years ago you 
saw it shift to an additional platform, the 15 EX. If the 
money, quite frankly, is finite, we will have some variation, 
and the priorities are still there, we are facing some very big 
challenges.
    So, Ms. Maurer, are you aware of any aircraft within the 
Department of Defense that has been able to reduce, 
significantly, those costs when it is at that mature stage of 
its early life?
    Ms. Maurer. Well, certainly, there are ways to bring down 
some of the costs, but I am not aware of any program where they 
have been able to achieve cost reductions in the magnitude that 
would be necessary to close these affordability gaps.
    Forty-seven percent for the Air Force. About 24 percent for 
the Marines and the Navy. You are not going to get these kind 
of reductions by just pursuing cost savings alone.
    Mr. Norcross. And then we talked about requirements, and 
this leads me to a question on the propulsion system. The 
coatings on turbines, obviously, we know it is an issue, 
particularly, came into focus recently as deployment returned. 
Who set the requirements for the engine, General Abba, back 
when this engine was first put together?
    General Abba. Mr. Chairman, with all due respect, that is a 
question, I think, I should defer to the Joint Program Office 
and the PEO.
    Mr. Norcross. Okay.
    General Fick. Mr. Chairman, our program requirements were 
established by the JROC [Joint Requirements Oversight Council]. 
And there wasn't a CDD at the time. It was an operation 
requirements document, or an ORD, at the time that set forth 
the basic requirements for the performance of the system. That 
ORD has been refined and a CDD, capability development 
document, has been published as well.
    The extent to which the propulsion requirement, the 
specifications buried within those overarching performance 
requirements, I don't think those were present in those 
documents, but I can certainly go back and verify that for the 
record.
    [The information referred to can be found in the Appendix 
on page 191.]
    General Fick. Relative to the coating issue itself, the 
F135 was designed with what is called a triplex or a three-part 
coating in the engines. When we discovered in 2018 that that 
coating was degrading in what we call a CMAS [calcium-
magnesium-alumino-silicate] environment, which is a specific 
sandy environment, we designed a fix and actually ended up 
reverting to a duplex or a two-part coating like that used on 
legacy aircraft. That duplex coating has proven to be very 
effective and suffers very little degradation. So, we are 
confident that that fix is going to be helping us move forward.
    Mr. Norcross. I appreciate the expansion on your answer on 
that. The point I am trying to make here is when those 
requirements were set, and I was getting to, is we made those 
requirements, it wasn't Pratt & Whitney.
    Why wasn't the consideration--let's call it a Middle East 
condition, sand--not figured into that given the history of 
where we have been in the last half century operating? How did 
we miss that?
    General Fick. Mr. Chairman, I don't know the answer to that 
question. I know that we designed the engine. We spec'd it to 
be compliant in certain environments. This environment was not 
one. I can go back and dig out the specific details associated 
with those environmental specifications, but----
    Mr. Norcross. No, we have a fix. I guess I am going to the 
root cause when we are setting requirements for the most 
expensive platform in the history of our country. We have been 
operating in the Middle East for years. It just--we want to 
have absolute confidence. The smartest people are making these, 
and here is one that just challenges us--and this isn't 
directed to you, but us as--how did we miss that? And you have 
answered it. So, I appreciate the frankness of which you have.
    I have to go vote, so we are going to go to--I am sorry? 
Okay. Thank you. Again, we are trying to vote and keep this in.
    Mr. Wilson, you are up next. You are muted.
    Mr. Wilson. Thank you very much, Chairman Don Norcross. And 
we were grateful for the witnesses who are here today.
    In South Carolina, we are very, very supportive of F-35s. 
Currently, at the Beaufort Marine Corps Air Station, it has 
really been a real asset to people of South Carolina. That 
community is represented by Congresswoman Nancy Mace. And we 
are very pleased with the training of Americans and also pilots 
of the United Kingdom, the Royal Air Force, to be there at 
Beaufort. And so, we have a wonderful experience with F-35s.
    Additionally, I am grateful, along with Congressman Jim 
Clyburn, to represent the capable men and women of the 169th 
Fighter Wing at McEntire Joint National Air Guard Base at 
Eastover, South Carolina. McEntire is unique in that it is 
located in a rural part of our State with very minimal 
encroachment. It is also home of the Air Force's most skilled 
pilots of the SEAD, and suppression of enemy air defenses 
mission.
    And also given that Lockheed Martin has modified the F-35--
and this is for General Fick--to conduct the SEAD, DEAD, 
[destruction] of [enemy] air defenses, how important is it to 
our lethality in the great power competition to ensure that the 
capability is transferred to the new airframe? And General 
Fick.
    General Fick. Sir, thank you very much for your question. I 
think it is absolutely critical that we continue to move the 
program forward from a capability perspective to give our 
warfighting services and customers the capabilities they need 
to prevail in the high-end threat. The Block 3F capabilities 
bring tools to the table.
    The Block 4 capabilities continue to accelerate our ability 
to dominate in that battlespace, and we do that through the 
addition of numerous weapons. We have 14 new weapons that are 
coming on board in the Block 4 capabilities set. We are 
enhancing the electronic warfare, we are enhancing the radar, 
and we are adding additional capabilities from a comm and nav 
and ID [identification] perspective, all of which will help us 
to prevail in the SEAD and DEAD missions.
    Mr. Wilson. And additionally, General, how many aircraft 
have been delivered in operational years across the services? 
How many in--or our allies? What has been the feedback from 
pilots operating the aircraft in real-world environment?
    General Fick. So, sir, 649 aircraft have been delivered to 
the global fleet today. The numbers are from a U.S. Air Force 
perspective, 373; Marine Corps perspective, 101 Bravos and 9 
Charlies; and from a U.S. Navy perspective, 36 total. And if 
you don't mind, I would love to give your question relative to 
what the warfighters are seeing to my warfighting panelist to 
my left, Brigadier General Abba.
    Mr. Wilson. Very good. Thank you.
    General Abba. Thank you, sir. From an Air Force 
perspective, and from what we hear in engagements with allies 
and partners around the world, the operator perspective is 
very, very clear that everybody loves the airplane right now.
    Having done the operational business for a quarter of a 
century myself, I will tell you that we should never be 
concerned about operators always wanting more capability out of 
their weapons systems.
    We should be worried if they ever stop asking for more 
capabilities out of their weapons systems. And in every service 
or nation that is transitioning from fourth-generation fleets 
to fifth-generation fleets, notes just the absolutely game-
changing capability of what the airplane delivers today as we 
execute operations around the world.
    But we also recognize the rapidly evolving threat 
environment that requires us to get to that TR3 Block 4 
configuration as soon as we can.
    Mr. Wilson. And then in line with that, General Abba, it is 
really incredible the benefit we have of sharing costs with our 
allies, working with Australia, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, 
additionally, Israel. And what has been the experience with the 
F-35 program in Israel?
    General Abba. Congressman, it is a great question. We have 
a very close military-to-military relationship with the 
Israelis when it comes to F-35. Israel is a foreign military 
sales customer for the program. But we have executed multiple 
interoperability exercises with the Israelis. And we have 
robust discussions exchanging lessons learned about operating 
the aircraft in combat.
    Mr. Wilson. And thank you. As the grateful son of an Army 
Air Corps Flying Tiger of World War II and a grateful uncle of 
a current airman serving, I want to thank you for your service. 
I yield back.
    Mr. Garamendi [presiding]. Thank you, Mr. Wilson. I guess I 
am next here. I always want to start taking a deep breath 
because the more I read, the more I hear, the angrier I become.
    General Fick, it always comes back to the Joint Program 
Office. You are the responsible person for the entire program, 
for the purchase of the planes, for watching over Lockheed 
Martin, looking over the engine from Pratt & Whitney. You are 
responsible for the spares being available. You are responsible 
for the whole program, not only for the United States, but for 
all of our allies that are purchasing this.
    So, I have been through hearing after hearing, and it all 
comes back to it is a marvelous plane--as we just heard from 
General Abba--we love it, if only we can keep it flying. I 
don't really--I don't know where to start because every single 
piece of this is problematic.
    Every single piece. The new planes are coming in with 
engines that have a problem. The new planes are coming in with 
the inability to keep them in the air because the plane doesn't 
work as well and as long as it was supposed to.
    So, General Fick, you are the responsible person. The Joint 
Program Office is the responsible party. You--I better just ask 
some questions, rather than tell you what you already know. You 
have developed a program called the Reliability and Maintaining 
Improvement Program.
    Can you explain how that is supposed to solve the problem 
of maintenance and reliability?
    General Fick. Yes, sir. When we look at availability, 
broadly, we look at availability and reliability on the 
platform with an eye towards improving mission capable and 
mission capable rates. We know there are a number of things 
that we have to do to move us in the right direction.
    The first thing that we have to do is to keep the parts on 
the aircraft longer, and that is where the Reliability and 
Maintainability Improvement Program comes from. Our investments 
in R--we call that RMIP as an acronym--our investments in RMIP 
are designed to go after parts that are failing prematurely, or 
parts that have a substantial opportunity to improve their time 
on wing, and then to invest in them and cut them into 
production and cut them into spares so that we actually keep 
them on the aircraft longer. That is really one of the four 
levers we have from an availability perspective.
    Mr. Garamendi. So, in your contract with the two principal 
companies, do you have the ability in that contract to hold 
them accountable for reducing or improving the reliability of 
the parts and pieces on the airplane? Do you have that power?
    General Fick. So, within our annual sustainment contracts 
that we have let with Lockheed Martin and Pratt & Whitney right 
now, we have a number of incentives that are placed onto those 
contracts. And the incentives placed on those contracts 
incentivize them to deliver to us mission capability rates 
across the A and the B and the C model--speaking about the air 
vehicle right now--across the A, B, and the C model. They also 
incentivize what we call gross issue effectiveness, and they 
incentivize repair turnaround time.
    So, the first half of that, the first MC [mission capable] 
part incentivizes them to invest prudently to keep the aircraft 
flying longer. The second half of that really are supply chain 
metrics that incentivize them to have parts ready to go when 
the aircraft breaks, which is really our second----
    Mr. Garamendi. Would you describe the incentive?
    General Fick. So, it is----
    Mr. Garamendi. Let me put it this way. Do they get paid 
less if they don't perform? Do they get paid more if they do 
perform?
    General Fick. They get paid less if they don't perform.
    Mr. Garamendi. Could you please deliver to our subcommittee 
the specifics about how that incentive works or----
    General Fick. Absolutely.
    Mr. Garamendi [continuing]. Apparently, it doesn't work too 
well thus far. Perhaps, we have found in other places that 
while the incentives are there, they are simply not utilized. 
Have you withheld or reduced payments to Lockheed Martin and to 
Pratt & Whitney for failure to meet the metric?
    General Fick. Absolutely. And we have done that across our 
development contracts, our production contracts, and our 
sustainment contracts. Each of which include what we call a 
performance incentive fee or PIF that is aimed to--well, to 
incentivize them to perform above and beyond the requirements.
    Mr. Garamendi. Please supply the details to the committee--
--
    General Fick. Absolutely.
    Mr. Garamendi [continuing]. About the existing incentive 
program as well as the actions that you have taken.
    General Fick. Yes, sir.
    [The information referred to can be found in the Appendix 
on page 193.]
    Mr. Garamendi. I am going to withhold further questions and 
turn to Mrs. Hartzler.
    Mrs. Hartzler. Great. Thank you. I appreciate that, Mr. 
Chairman.
    I understand that the annual costs of the F-35 to sustain 
it is $8 to $9 million per tail depending on the variant. Can 
you explain what goes into that cost? Because just as an 
ordinary citizen looking at that, I think, how can you come up 
with $8 million worth of maintenance cost every year?
    General Fick. Ma'am, thank you for the question, and it is 
a good one. Where there are four basic elements to the cost of 
the aircraft, of sustaining aircraft, and they include what we 
call sustaining support. These are the people basically that 
are doing the work, largely, on the flight line. Our field 
support are Lockheed and Pratt & Whitney field support 
representatives and field support engineers. In addition to 
what you probably heard to--referred to as ALIS administrators. 
These are Lockheed folks who are boots on the ground working 
with ALIS. That is one driver.
    The second driver of sustainment costs includes our U.S. 
Government maintenance footprint. This is one of the things 
that Ms. Maurer was talking about previously. Once the design 
is completely baked on a program, at times it becomes 
challenging to be able to effectively reduce that maintenance 
footprint. We are working really closely with General Abba, the 
Air Force, the Navy, and Marine Corps looking at alternative 
ways to train our maintainers to help us reduce that 
maintenance footprint.
    The second, the last two pieces are really air vehicle 
parts and their repair, and engine parts and their repair. In 
aggregate, all of those pieces when combined together form 
that--are kind of the four pillars of that annual sustainment 
cost. And those also present our greatest opportunities to go 
after cost, to target those specific areas in an attempt to 
bring costs down. Certainly, we won't make them go away, as Ms. 
Maurer mentioned, but we can certainly bring them down.
    Mrs. Hartzler. It seems like there is a lot of room there 
for improvement. I mean, how much do these parts cost? Is it 
really warranted? How much are these individuals paid per hour? 
What is their rate of production? There is just a lot of things 
here. So, I hope that you will continue to go after those.
    I had to step out to vote, so has anyone--have you had a 
chance to visit about the joint simulator environment? Okay. 
Can you give us some insights with those problems with that, 
because that seems to be holding everything up moving forward. 
Until you all get the joint simulator ready to go, we can't 
really have that testing that is needed. So where are we at on 
that, and what is the problem?
    General Fick. Ma'am, so the Joint Simulation Environment is 
an environment that we, the U.S. Government, decided to 
establish maybe about 5 years ago for the conduct of initial 
operational test and evaluation. Originally, we were going to 
use a Lockheed Martin facility, but elected to pull that away 
from them and do that ourselves.
    So, we have been working very, very closely with Naval Air 
Systems Command in Patuxent River, Maryland, to bring the Joint 
Simulation Environment to life over the course of the last 
several years.
    What we have discovered is that integrating both the F-35, 
but as well as all of the blue and red aircraft, all of the 
other ground and airborne threats into that environment, along 
with all of the weapons that they use in numbers that are 
operationally representative of the theater that we are trying 
to synthetically create, is a very daunting problem.
    It is a very challenging problem to do that integration in 
a way that allows us to then take open-air flight test data, 
bring it into that environment, and prove to ourself that in 
that synthetic environment, I can exactly duplicate what I 
would have seen in open air.
    It is that verification and validation process that gives 
us the ability to use that for initial operational test and 
evaluation. But it is that rigor, that degree of integration 
between the weapons, the platforms, the threats, their weapons 
in that synthetic space that is so very challenging.
    So, as we have moved forward, it has been challenges 
associated with that integration, compounded a little bit by 
COVID. Ultimately, most of the work that we are doing, we have 
to do in classified spaces as they work that integration and 
social distancing in what are typically small spaces is 
challenging.
    So that has compounded it. But I just don't want to 
undersell the challenge associated with the task. It is very 
complex.
    Mrs. Hartzler. So how many years has it been you have been 
working on this now?
    General Fick. Ma'am, I have been working--so I have been in 
the Joint Program Office, next week will be 4 years as the 
deputy or as the PEO, and it has been under development the 
entire time that I have been here. I don't know the exact date 
on which it switched over from the Lockheed VSim Solution to 
the JSE. But at least for my duration in the program office, it 
has been going on.
    Mrs. Hartzler. So, I had the opportunity to see some war 
games that was going on. And I was surprised to learn that is--
a lot of it is open source. That it is something that people 
can buy on the shelf. That individuals, kind of like Wikipedia, 
actually feed into it. And then our government adds to it extra 
sensitive information.
    But are you using any private companies in this development 
process that could help with some of the basics of the 
simulator?
    General Fick. Ma'am, so we have enlisted the assistance. 
Shortly after the beginning of the year, we enlisted Carnegie 
Mellon University, Johns Hopkins University, and the Georgia 
Tech Research Institute to help us to assess whether the task 
that we are actually trying to accomplish in the JSE is even 
feasible. We are due to get that assessment back later this 
month or early next month to make sure that we are not asking 
for something that is impossible.
    It is very easy to make things look right on the screen. It 
is a lot different to make sure that all of the software 
operational flight programs are responding appropriately, all 
of the signals are processed by the radar or the radar 
simulator appropriately. Because it is those, really those 
interactions under the hood that are the things that are 
important with this very, very complex weapon system.
    Mrs. Hartzler. Very complex for sure. So, what will you do 
if the university comes back and says what you have been trying 
to do for 4 years is impossible?
    General Fick. So, ma'am, I don't think that is going to be 
the case.
    Mrs. Hartzler. Okay.
    General Fick. But we will--I think we would need to have a 
very serious conversation with the Director of Operational Test 
and Evaluation about whether or not he still feels that those 
64 final runs in our initial operational test and evaluation 
program need to continue to be executed.
    Mrs. Hartzler. Great. Thank you very much. I will yield 
back.
    Mr. Norcross [presiding]. Thank you. Mr. Courtney.
    Mr. Courtney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General Fick, at the 
first panel, Ms. Maurer did a really nice job of sort of 
walking the members through the way the lack of access to the 
intellectual property and technical data sort of disrupts, you 
know, an efficient maintenance program out at the sites where 
the F-35s are.
    Mr. Ulmer from Lockheed sort of described that there has 
been some movement, you know, in terms of the government 
getting, I guess, more control over that. But it sounded very 
sort of sporadic and ad hoc. And I think we agreed clunky was 
also a way to sort of describe how that is right now.
    So, can you, I mean, just describe again what is the 
dynamic here? I mean, obviously, it seems like it is a 
contractual problem, right? Because you have got to almost go 
back in and renegotiate a proprietary right. Is that sort of 
what is making--because this has been the recommendation since 
2014?
    General Fick. Yes, sir, thank you for your question. So, 
certainly, this question and the problem itself has at its root 
the initial philosophy of the program, which was a total system 
performance responsibility effort led completely by Lockheed 
Martin.
    So there are a lot of things that we didn't ask for 
relative to our ability to take delivery of them, that perhaps 
in a program that had started in a different way, we would have 
asked for and taken delivery of those pieces of data earlier.
    And so that is not necessarily an intellectual property 
issue, it is a data delivery issue. And were we willing to pay 
and did we pay for those pieces of data.
    Relative to what the users, to what our maintainers are 
finding on the ground at the squadron and group level, they 
have become accustomed to working inside a maintenance concept 
that has them doing more things than was designed into the F-35 
maintenance concept from the beginning. The F-35 maintenance 
concept is one that goes what we call O to D, organizational 
level to the depot level, with no intermediate level between 
them. A lot of other programs, a lot of legacy programs go from 
that organizational level to an intermediate or back-shop 
level.
    And it is at that back-shop level where many times another 
Air Force person or civilian would disassemble the part, repair 
it locally, and not actually send it back to the depot.
    The decision was made within the program that we are going 
to go straight from O level to D level. We are not going to 
staff those back-shops. We are not going to put extra people 
there to do that work.
    And so, what I sense that Ms. Maurer and her team found was 
that the maintainers who are maintaining the F-35, having come 
from other programs that use immediate-level maintenance, want 
to do that work.
    And so, what we need to be able to do is to assess the 
costs and the benefit associated with doing that work. And if 
it is appropriate that we do that, maybe we adjust the 
maintenance philosophy and open up the opportunity for us to 
add that extra level, add those tasks, collect the data to do 
so to allow that to happen.
    Mr. Courtney. So, it sounds like, then, you are not totally 
buying into the notion that getting, you know, greater control 
of that technical data necessarily is going to result in, you 
know, improved maintenance. Am I hearing that?
    General Fick. I guess I wouldn't say it that way. What I 
would say is we need to study these things before we execute 
them. The one end of the spectrum would be that we need to 
purchase all of the technical data for the program, and we need 
to take delivery of it. And that would be a very expensive 
proposition. The other end of the spectrum would be just for 
places where we started.
    Somewhere in the middle is where we need to end up, which 
is we get the tech data that allows us to do the things that 
provide the biggest bang for the buck for our maintainers. 
Because General Abba in the Air Force has to figure out if they 
would rather do that, or if they would rather do something 
else. Because I can't come back and ask for more money.
    Mr. Courtney. So, I mean clearly on other subcommittees we 
have heard from the Air Force about the fact that platforms 
that came into being after F-35, you know, there is a different 
approach in terms of getting control of that.
    So, I mean, I sort of took from that that, you know, that 
is sort of a de facto endorsement by the Air Force that that is 
a better way to run a program.
    You know, I would just say this, you know, if GAO, and I 
think they seem to be, you know, describing something that 
makes a lot of sense, you know, and I tried to convey this to 
Mr. Ulmer, you know, we have got a problem here in terms of 
just the overall top line of the budget.
    And people have got to start making some moves on both 
sides of the table to try to come up with ways to be more 
efficient. And this seems like it is sort of screaming out for 
movement, you know.
    And to the extent that Congress can help with that, I think 
from the chairman of this committee on down, I think there is a 
lot of interest in terms of trying to see if there is ways we 
can enable that in the NDAA [National Defense Authorization 
Act], or wherever. So anyway, thank you for your answers.
    General Fick. Yes, sir. I guess I could add, the Navy is 
actually also very interested in what we call intermediate-
level maintenance, and they have actually begun a pilot 
pursuing that as a Navy unique looking at their option and 
opportunity to do that work, given that much of their time, of 
course, is spent aboard ship. Right?
    So, the notion of sending everything O to D on an aircraft 
carrier misses an opportunity to take advantage of skill sets 
that are present. So, the program office is currently working 
that with the Navy. I could see an analog if the Air Force were 
interested.
    Mr. Courtney. Mr. Chairman, just really quickly. Ms. 
Maurer, if you have suggestions for the committee in terms of 
how to address this issue, I mean, I think we would be all 
ears.
    Ms. Maurer. No, absolutely, I think this is a very 
important and vital issue. And one of the things we have been 
in discussion with the committee staff is the next review that 
we will be doing at GAO would be to look in-depth at the 
potential costs and benefits of moving more of the sustainment 
approach, organically, giving more responsibility to folks 
inside the government, and moving the needle more towards the 
middle as General Fick described.
    Mr. Norcross. Thank you. Ms. Speier.
    Ms. Speier. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General Fick, I think 
the American taxpayers are asking a very simple question. We 
spend more money on defense than our peers and near-peers 
combined. And then you have a project like the F-35, 25 years 
in development.
    I know these questions in some respects aren't fair to you 
because you have only been in charge for 4 years. But, the 
problem is the costs are extraordinary. And I think you have 
heard that from everybody.
    Based on what has been said by Ms. Maurer from GAO, we 
either have to decide to build fewer planes or purchase fewer 
planes or reduce the number of flight hours or reduce the 
number of requirements. It seems like at some point we are 
going to have to answer that question. Have you started to 
think along those lines?
    General Fick. Ma'am, we are absolutely working together 
with all of our customers, General Abba, next to me, his 
counterparts, the Navy, the Marine Corps. And I know that those 
conversations go all the way to the chiefs of staff, to the 
commandants, to the parliaments of each and every one of our 
international partners as well.
    The lever that I control in the affordability conversation 
is cost. As I mentioned previously, there are a number of 
things that we can do relative to cost, and the program office 
is aggressively attacking each of those and working to cement 
those into our annual contracts.
    Ms. Speier. All right. Thank you. I have got very limited 
time.
    Ms. Maurer, what recommendations that you have provided 
over the last year or 2 years relative to the F-35 have not 
been complied with by the Department of Defense?
    Ms. Maurer. Thank you for the question. So, we have--over 
the past several years, we have had a total of, I think it is 
30--30 different recommendations specific to different issues 
associated with the sustainment. Eleven of those are closed, 19 
of those are open. I think that the good news there is that we 
have seen in the last couple of years increased attention and 
focus from the Joint Program Office as well as OSD and others 
to take actions to implement those recommendations. So that is 
encouraging.
    But we are also concerned that most of them are still open. 
And we think that there needs to be additional progress made on 
some of the key recommendations around strategy for managing 
the supply chain and intellectual property strategy, as well as 
continued progress on different aspects of ALIS and ODIN 
development.
    We also think that the new recommendations that we have in 
our current report about taking a look at cost-saving efforts, 
taking a hard look at requirements, developing an overall 
strategy for affordability, and then building risk into that 
analysis, and reporting it out to the Congress are going to be 
very important in the near term and in the future for continued 
effective oversight.
    Ms. Speier. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I would recommend that 
in the next 6 months we have another hearing and hone in, 
specifically, on the recommendations made by GAO that have not 
been followed up on so that we can track this more carefully.
    General Fick, who now owns and controls the data within 
ALIS?
    General Fick. Ma'am, the data within ALIS is owned and 
controlled by the U.S. Government.
    Ms. Speier. And it will be owned and controlled by ODIN as 
well. I mean----
    General Fick. Yes, ma'am.
    Ms. Speier [continuing]. We will own and control ODIN. So, 
there was a dispute last year about the software, and that we 
didn't really have control of the software and had to rely on 
the contractor. Is that still the case?
    General Fick. So the case with the ALIS software, the parts 
of the ALIS software that we paid for, as a government we own; 
the parts of the ALIS software that we did not pay for that 
were sourced at either Lockheed's expense or perhaps came from 
what were COTS [commercial off-the-shelf] elements of software, 
we don't own the rights for. But we do own the rights for the 
software that we paid for.
    Ms. Speier. Well, but then we are hampered. Moving forward 
with ODIN, are we going to own everything?
    General Fick. Yes, ma'am.
    Ms. Speier. Would it be helpful if Lockheed would turn over 
the software that they technically own and make our movement to 
ODIN simpler?
    General Fick. So, ma'am, I don't know if that would be 
helpful or not. We are actively working the transition from 
ALIS to ODIN. When I briefed this committee last year, I 
committed to a very aggressive timeline for the transition 
between ALIS and ODIN. And what we have learned over the course 
of the last year is that that transition in that amount of 
time, which effectively amounted to a flip of a switch, is not 
going to be possible.
    So, as we have continued to mature the discussion and our 
foundational work on ODIN over the course of the last year, we 
have come to realize that we need to do two things. The first 
is we need to continue to improve the functionality of ALIS in 
the near term as we ensure that the ODIN structure that we put 
into place from a hardware perspective, from a data environment 
perspective, and from a software perspective is what the users 
need.
    And so, we have moved out and developed a user agreement 
that helps us to navigate the relationship with all of our 
users relative to ODIN. And we have developed an ODIN 
capability needs statement that allow--that helps us to 
actually write down the things that we need ODIN to do and how 
we need them--and how we need ODIN to do it. The challenge is--
--
    Ms. Speier. I think my time has expired. But let me just 
say, I have a couple of other questions that I am going to ask 
you to respond to. One in part being, I presume we are now 
paying for the costs of both ALIS and ODIN, and I would like to 
know what that is. But I will submit them for the record.
    With that, I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Norcross. Thank you. And your recommendation is under 
advisement for the timing issue of bringing them back.
    John and I both have a few questions left. And we are the 
only two left, and Jackie.
    Mr. Garamendi. If I might?
    Ms. Speier, if you could stick around. You had two more 
ODIN/ALIS questions. On my time----
    Mr. Norcross. We are going to be here.
    Mr. Garamendi [continuing]. I would appreciate you taking 
up those questions, as I was going to go into that myself. So, 
when it comes to my time, if you can continue with the ODIN/
ALIS.
    Ms. Speier. All right.
    Mr. Norcross. Jackie, I will defer now. You were on a roll. 
Continue.
    Ms. Speier. So, if you could, General, tell us how much we 
are now spending maintaining these two systems.
    General Fick. Okay, ma'am. So, the future cost, as we work 
to transition into ODIN, we intend to invest, over the course 
of the FYDP [Future Years Defense Program], $471 million into 
the combination of ALIS and ODIN as we move from one into the 
other.
    Ms. Speier. And how much was ALIS costing us before?
    General Fick. Ma'am, the total cost invested on ALIS over 
the course of the program, to include ALIS development, 
hardware procurement, and operations, is just over a billion 
dollars.
    Ms. Speier. It is a billion dollars. And, as I understand 
it, it has never worked properly, and our maintainers have had 
to make split-second decisions as to whether or not to let the 
plane fly because they didn't have the logs. Is that correct?
    General Fick. Ma'am, I wouldn't call them split-second 
decisions, but, yes, our maintainers have had to deal with 
errors in the way that ALIS has handled the electronic 
equipment logs [EELs]. We talked about that in the Oversight 
and Reform Committee hearing last summer.
    The good news there is that we are actually seeing 
significant progress in how we are digesting our EELs. We have 
seen that the ready-for-issue rate has increased from 43 
percent in February of 2020 to 84 percent in February of 2021.
    One of the other things we talked about at that particular 
point in time was actually reducing the number of parts that 
require EELs. We have actually done that. We have removed 438 
part numbers that formerly had EELs, and that impacted 118,000 
parts across the enterprise.
    So, we are actively moving the needle in the right 
direction, relative to the EEL question.
    I would also articulate that, over the course of the last 
year, we have changed our philosophy relative to fielding 
software updates into ALIS, and we have moved from a big bang 
every 2 to 3 years kind of an update to a quarterly update 
cycle that has allowed us to interact directly with the users, 
figure out what is making their heads hurt, and then get after 
them.
    Our last two releases have been very successful. But you 
will notice I said ``quarterly'' and ``in the last year'' and 
``two releases'' all in the same sentence, which means that two 
of the quarterly releases ended up having to be combined with 
another because of issues we found in development.
    So we are being very careful and judicious about how we 
field this new software to the field, how we push this new 
software to the field, to make sure we don't adversely impact 
operations, while still improving the usability of ALIS as we 
make way to transition into ODIN.
    Hopefully that made sense.
    Ms. Speier. All right. I think it did.
    General Fick, back in July of last year, before the 
Oversight Committee--you referenced this earlier--you said 
that, beginning in 2021, the contracted requirement for parts 
ready to issue will be 99 percent. That is a quote. And you 
just referred to the fact that that was ambitious and that you 
weren't able to do that.
    When do you think you will be in a position to say that 99 
percent of the parts are ready to issue?
    General Fick. Ma'am, my team is negotiating the 2021 to 
2023 annual sustainment contract with Lockheed right now. 
Candidly, I was hopeful that I would able to announce to the 
committee today that we had reached a handshake agreement, but 
we have not.
    I know that the RFI [ready for issue] parts percentage 
requirement as part of the contract incentives in that contract 
was set to 99 percent. I need to follow up with you and let you 
know when we anticipate that happening.
    I will tell you that, over the course of the last year--I 
gave you the two endpoints. I gave you February of 2020 and I 
gave you February of 2021. And we have seen dramatic 
improvement, but what we have also noticed is that we also see 
dramatic swings month over month as we assess the data that we 
get back from the field, which means that what is happening is, 
as new suppliers or different suppliers ship parts in, they are 
still having trouble coming up to ensuring that the EELs 
transfer into the system properly.
    And so, we continue to work those. I know that getting over 
90 percent by the end of this quarter, the end of this fiscal 
quarter, which would be the end of April--I am sorry, May--is 
what my team tells me they are about to do. But as we sign that 
contract with an objective at 99 percent, that should help to 
drive additional attention on Lockheed's part into ensuring 
that we get the fixes made not just to ALIS but also to the 
underlying data systems with which ALIS interacts.
    Ms. Speier. Thank you. Just one last question, Mr. 
Chairman.
    Ms. Maurer, I would like your comments on what General Fick 
just said, as to, are we really fixing the system or just 
changing the rules so that the numbers look better.
    Ms. Maurer. I think we have definitely seen some progress 
and efforts to change the system. So that is encouraging.
    The capability needs statement, in particular, we think was 
a very important step. Among other things, that document 
contains some performance measures for ODIN which did not exist 
for ALIS and still do not exist for ALIS, so we think that is a 
step in the right direction.
    We still have questions about the overall end state for 
what ODIN is designed to be. There are still a lot of 
unanswered questions about some of the fundamental issues that 
we raised in our work on ALIS about cloud usage and software 
development model and ensuring user feedback and some other 
things.
    So, we are going to continue to watch this, but we are 
cautiously optimistic, but we will stay studiously skeptical.
    Ms. Speier. Okay. Thank you. I yield back.
    General Fick. And, ma'am, if I could----
    Ms. Speier. Yes.
    General Fick. Ma'am, if I could, the reason I answered my 
question relative to simply taking the old ALIS code was 
exactly to your point. Our intent with ODIN is not to just 
rebrand ALIS. ODIN is all about a new hardware baseline, a new 
integrated data environment, and new applications and user 
interfaces that make it a better system from the ground up that 
we own in its entirety and will then execute.
    So, while we are continuing to evolve ALIS and we will 
transition into ODIN, ODIN will be different. It won't just be 
a rehashed ALIS.
    Ms. Speier. All right. Thank you.
    I yield back, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
    Mr. Norcross. Thank you.
    Let me follow up on what Jackie brought up. You just 
discussed the fact that you are negotiating a sustainment 
maintenance contract with Lockheed Martin. Most of this hearing 
has been focused on that affordability gap and the sustainment 
issues. Built into that will be the answer for the cost 
savings, if we have any chance of doing that.
    Can you share with us those goals?
    General Fick. So, I can't disclose the actual negotiating 
positions right now. But what I can tell you is what our 
philosophy is as we move forward, from a sustainment 
perspective and a sustainment affordability perspective.
    We look at this in a number of different phases. You will 
recall that, back in the fall of 2019, Lockheed Martin dropped 
a white paper on Ms. Lord's desk that defined a tip-to-tail 
performance-based logistics [PBL] contract approach that they 
wanted to employ beginning in 2021. There was broad pushback 
within the Department but a mandate to go study that proposal 
and to assess what a solution might be that would be acceptable 
to the services, acceptable to Lockheed Martin, and deliver us 
improved performance at the same cost or the same performance 
at decreased cost. So, looking at, how can we rescope this PBL 
idea into something that is a win-win for the community.
    What we didn't want to do is, we didn't want to get trapped 
into a mandate to sign a PBL contract that is a bad deal before 
we were ready to. So, we simultaneously started to negotiate 
what we are calling the 2021 to 2023--so fiscal years 2021, 
2022, and 2023--annual sustainment contract. So, they are 
effectively three contracts, a contract and options. That will 
serve as a backstop to us as we begin to pull together the 
tenets of a supply-support and demand-reduction performance-
based logistics contract, which is the piece that we decided 
was actually probably a good idea from a driving-down-parts-
cost perspective.
    So, we are currently negotiating that 2021 to 2023 
contract. And our entry point for the release of the request 
for proposal for the PBL contract is the handshake on that 2021 
to 2023 contract.
    Now, the cost targets that my team has put into place on 
that 2021 to 2023 contract are intended to drive us towards the 
$25,000 by fiscal year 2025 target that the program has set for 
ourselves. Will it get us there by itself? No. But the cost 
targets that we have established from a cost-per-flight-hour 
perspective on that 2021 to 2023 contract move us down that 
path.
    At the same time, we are executing the business case 
assessment [BCA] that is going to help the services to 
determine what our long-term sustainment strategy needs to be 
for the enterprise. Is it more PBLs? Is it more organic? Is it 
what we are doing today, or is it something different? That 
business case analysis will be released this summer, and we 
will use that to inform how we move forward.
    The third entry criteria, really, into the PBL would be 
that, as we did that BCA and we figured out what the long-term 
sustainment strategy needs to be for the Department, that we 
figure out the data that we need, and then those data become 
another entry point--that the delivery of that data on the PBL 
RFP [request for proposals] becomes an entry point for those 
negotiations.
    So we are using the carrot, if you will, of the PBL to make 
sure that we get a reasonable proposal to secure the tech data 
that the Department needs to execute its intended strategy at 
the conclusion of that PBL and moving forward.
    That was a little bit complicated, and I apologize, but----
    Mr. Norcross. No. It goes----
    General Fick [continuing]. That was our overarching 
philosophy.
    Mr. Norcross [continuing]. Exactly to the point, and we 
appreciate it.
    But the 2021 to 2023 literally bakes in whatever cost 
savings are going to go for that period of time. So, squeezing 
additional would come out of flight hours, buying less planes. 
It is good that there are savings there, but we have now shut 
off that, realistically, for any additional savings in that 
first category, as brought up.
    And, quite frankly, that gives us a much better focus on 
what decision we have to make. It makes the numbers very real, 
or hopefully it will. So, I appreciate the explanation.
    I just want to shift a little bit, before I turn it over to 
Mr. Garamendi, on the plus-ups over the course of the last 7 
years. You know, in 2015 there were 4; 11; 11; 20.
    Ms. Maurer, as we look at this, what is the impact on the 
program when we start looking at the additional costs that come 
with buying more planes than requested? You know, that means 
the sustainment costs are moved forward, military construction 
has to be ready for these. Parts, you know, we are fighting 
over parts each year. When I say ``fighting,'' is it going to 
sustainment? Is it going to the line? And all this is going on 
before we even reach full-rate production.
    What is the impact that we are looking at when we picked up 
97 additional tails over the course of those 7 years?
    Ms. Maurer. Sure. Well, first off, obviously, those are 
political decisions----
    Mr. Norcross. We understand.
    Ms. Maurer [continuing]. So, GAO is not going to say----
    Mr. Norcross. I am asking for the impact on the program.
    Ms. Maurer. But the impact on the program, I think it 
certainly exacerbates the sustainment challenges that the 
program has faced over the last several years and, certainly, 
that the program has come late to the game in taking a 
strategic approach at addressing sustainment challenges.
    Over the last couple of years, we have seen a lot of 
progress there, but by having additional systems above and 
beyond the request, it complicates General Fick's ability, and 
his predecessors', their ability to effectively manage the 
program.
    It also exacerbates the problems with the high concurrency 
with this program, which you alluded to. We are not technically 
at full-rate production, but, really, we kind of already are, 
in terms of the production levels. This program has been highly 
concurrent from day one.
    Mr. Norcross. Uh-huh.
    Ms. Maurer. In fact, I found a testimony from one of my 
predecessors from 2000 where GAO's recommendation at that time 
was to try to avoid high levels of concurrency. That did not 
happen. That led to all kinds of problems with cost and 
schedule and contributed to problems with sustainment.
    So, the bottom line is, adding planes above and beyond the 
Department's request complicates efforts to address 
sustainment. Now, there are bigger-picture considerations, of 
course--national security considerations, first and foremost. 
So, I don't want to second-guess those. But it does make things 
more difficult to manage sustainment costs.
    Mr. Norcross. But when planes that have been throughout our 
country and around the world are sitting, waiting for parts----
    Ms. Maurer. Right.
    Mr. Norcross [continuing]. That we are building new ones 
for, it just seems like a self-inflicted wound that we could 
avoid. Maybe that is harsh, but from everything that we have 
heard from you today, it appears that way.
    So, General Fick, would you concur with that? Or can you 
add to it?
    General Fick. Well, certainly, sir, I think we could figure 
out what the cost associated--you know, it would be relatively 
easy, right? A hundred extra aircraft, 250 hours per year per 
aircraft--you know, 25,000 extra hours associated with those 
times, the cost per flight hour. I mean, that is added, you 
know, sustainment cost that is being borne by the services that 
they wouldn't have to otherwise bear, to include the demand on 
parts associated with those jets. So, I understand your point 
exactly.
    To Ms. Maurer's point, we are effectively at full rate 
today. As we recover from COVID and we look out into the 
future, we are, at some level, kind of cresting a long, tall 
climb that has actually hurt us a little bit from a supply 
perspective. Because, as Greg Ulmer discussed earlier this 
morning, we had previously pushed out the stand-up of all of 
our organic depots to the 2030 kind of timeframe. Right? In the 
meantime, we are climbing this huge ramp, and now we are 
relying upon those OEMs [original equipment manufacturers] that 
are producing the parts to not only produce the parts for the 
production line, which increased by about 40 percent a year for 
3 or 4 years in a row, right, but we are asking them now to 
also consume the parts that come back and get returned. Right?
    So, we have pushed out our organic depots, we are climbing 
a huge ramp, and we are relying upon those same vendors to do 
that work. So, I think that is kind of at the heart of why we 
had a supply problem. Now, we also had a couple of years where 
we didn't buy spares, and that hurts us too.
    So, now, as we crest that wave, right, and we are not going 
up anymore, but we are kind of leveling out, we have proven we 
can make that rate. We just need to--in my mind, we just need 
to settle out at that rate, allow the system to recover and 
deliver the parts that we need, follow through with our 
commitment to standing up both the organic depots inside the 
U.S. and also the OCONUS [outside contiguous United States] 
depots that will help us from a global capacity perspective to 
fill out the solution around the world.
    There is a lot of catching up, sir, frankly, that we have 
to do as a program. And that is what me and my team are doing 
every single day.
    Mr. Norcross. And that is the point we are trying to get 
at, exactly. I want to buy a shiny, new one. I love them coming 
off the line, lower than $80 million. But the cost is--my good 
friend, sustainment, over here to my right, is, when we can't 
get those parts, you will have a shiny new one, while others 
are sitting there. And that is a tradeoff.
    You know, as I said, we are all in this together, but we 
are trying to be efficient and be ready. It just seems we can 
do it better.
    With that, I will defer to the chairman of Readiness, Mr. 
Garamendi.
    Mr. Garamendi. Thank you very much.
    The discussion on ALIS and ODIN is very, very important. It 
seems to be a key part of the operation of the aircraft as well 
as the sustainment. And so, you are moving forward on it. You 
are getting a quarterly update. We really need a quarterly 
update too.
    And we need to know how we can assist the Joint Program 
Office in its negotiations, which were discussed. I don't want 
to go back through it, but I want to add to that discussion 
that they are going to need some leverage here in order to 
successfully deal with the PBL on the ALIS, ODIN, and all of 
the elements to it.
    A couple of other things.
    You know, clearly, there has been a disconnect. First of 
all, the sustainment and maintenance was not at the outset of 
this program, and it didn't come along until very late in the 
program. And, to this day, the sustainment piece of it is not 
yet in place, to catch up with the base number of planes.
    And then the problem was made worse by the additional 97 
planes that we are responsible, together with Lockheed and 
other contractors that wanted to have the extra number of 
planes, the extra work, the extra profit, and the like. So, we 
share that problem.
    And I can assure you that, this year, if anybody suggests a 
plus-up, there will be one hell of a fight, and I don't propose 
to lose it. And I think I have some allies on that.
    Nevertheless, that doesn't solve the problem, because we 
still have that backlog, caused in major part by the plus-up 
and, equally, by no prior planning and preparation for the 
ongoing sustainment and maintenance.
    There has been an ongoing effort, I recall from earlier 
hearings, that the Air Force and the Navy are in a discussion 
about simply taking over the totality of their operations from 
the joint planning office.
    Where is that, General Fick? Is there really a desire on 
the part of the Air Force and the Navy to simply say, ``We are 
going to do this ourselves, we don't need to go through the 
JPO''? Where are we? What is happening there?
    General Fick. So, sir, I can't speak to what the Navy and 
the Air Force are thinking about doing on things that I don't 
know about, but I am not aware of any plans in place right now 
to break apart the Joint Program Office into any service-
specific program office.
    I will tell you, if you don't mind going on a little 
journey with me, when I got to the program office 4 years ago 
and I was a new--not a new, but I was a one-star and I was 
talking to a Navy captain in the hallway, I looked at him and I 
said, ``Hey, Captain. It is good to see how the Navy runs 
programs, because, boy, this isn't the way the Air Force runs 
programs.'' And he looked at me with terror in his eyes and 
said, ``Oh, my gosh, sir. I thought this was the way the Air 
Force ran programs.''
    So, at that point, it dawned on me that we were very 
unusual. Right? And so we started to look at ways that we make 
this program look and feel much more like a normal program for 
the people who are in the program office so that they don't 
have to spend so much time trying to figure out how do things 
work around here.
    So, in the spring of 2020, so just over a year ago, we 
actually pivoted the organizational construct within the 
program office. So, now, instead of a global director of 
development, production, and sustainment, I have a program 
management office director who is responsible for the cradle-
to-grave development, production, and sustainment of the air 
vehicle; I have another one that is responsible for the engine; 
I have another one that is responsible for the maintenance data 
systems, to include ALIS and ODIN; I have one that is 
responsible for training systems; and one that is responsible 
for combat data systems, which is my office that generates--
that works closely with the wing down at Eglin to produce our 
mission data files.
    Giving that cradle-to-grave responsibility to a senior 
materiel leader-type person in a very, very similar way to the 
way we run program offices in both the Air Force and Department 
of the Navy is helping to add discipline and visibility in 
places where we didn't have discipline and visibility before.
    We are starting to see, in my mind at least, very positive 
outcomes associated with that attention. As a matter of fact, a 
lot of the progress that we have seen on the propulsion side 
relative to the stand-up--accelerating the stand-up of the F135 
facilities at Tinker is a direct result of the Navy captain 
that is running that shop now and just doing a great job.
    So we have found that, internal to the program office, we 
were a little bit odd, we were a little bit unusual, and it was 
taking a long time for people to learn how to do the things 
that they need to do and then to just go ahead and do them. And 
so, by making this restructure, it has allowed us to empower 
our leaders within the program office with a greater sense of 
ownership to really get after our customers' biggest needs.
    So, I think we are making steps in the right direction. And 
we deliberately, Ms. Skeen and myself and Admiral Chebi, my 
deputy PEO, took this opportunity to divide the organization in 
this way because that makes sense and preserves the synergy of 
the program office across all of the variants, across all of 
the partners, and across all of the services, while still 
allowing a feel that looks and feels a lot more like what 
people are used to.
    Mr. Garamendi. I appreciate your attempt to reorganize. We 
would hope that it would be a successful reorganization.
    So, I will cross off of my ``let's watch it'' list the 
dismantlement of the Joint Program Office by either the Air 
Force--by the Air Force or the Navy that actually started this 
discussion in January of 2019. So, we will find out if somebody 
is behind your back doing something.
    I want to focus on the depots. Earlier, there was a 
discussion by Lockheed of 64 depots. I assume those are depots 
around the world in various countries and the like. I am going 
to let Israel worry about its depots, but I shall worry about 
American depots.
    So, this is a question to General Abba: How is it going? 
How are your depots coming along?
    General Abba. Well, sir, the 68 depots that will eventually 
be stood up, as General Fick mentioned earlier, 32 of those are 
stood up now. Of the 62 depots, ultimately, 38 of those will be 
Air Force depots. The other 30 will be divided amongst the 
other services to provide those.
    Clearly, the one that has gotten the most attention right 
now, as we have discussed, is the F135 depot out at Tinker, the 
heavy maintenance center there. And as we heard this morning in 
the first panel, there has been significant improvement in 
increasing the work in progress, as well as they are initiating 
significant efforts to bring down the turnaround time to fix 
the engines.
    We have a production target this year of 40 power modules 
to be produced at the heavy maintenance center, with that 
looking to increase to 60 the next year and then follow-on 
expansions in partnership with the Joint Program Office other 
than that.
    So that is really the extent of what I can explain from an 
Air Force perspective because we participate as part of the 
broader partnership in working with our JPO teammates as well 
as the OEMs to execute those repairs.
    Mr. Garamendi. In the future, do you foresee the 
continuation of the contractors basically operating the heavy 
maintenance and the lighter maintenance at the various depots, 
or is that going to become--bring it in house, organic? How do 
you perceive the future here?
    General Abba. Sir, I would say, as part of a player within 
the broader architecture, I would have to defer to the PEO on 
the architecture for the follow-on sustainment strategy.
    Mr. Garamendi. Well, then, that must be General Fick.
    General Fick. Yes, sir. So those 68 depots--those 68 
workloads are distributed across the depots, as General Abba 
mentioned. They are vital, right, to us getting after the 
7,300-item stack of repairables that we have to consume and get 
back into a place where we can install them into aircraft.
    As each of those stand up--and we are expecting to do 11 
this year to get us to 43 by the end of the year; that is our 
target--we see challenges for 3 of those. So somewhere between 
40 and 43 is where we will end up. But we are still targeting, 
as Greg Ulmer mentioned previously, having all 68 of them stood 
up by the end of 2024.
    Each one of them will likely come with a slightly different 
business arrangement between the depot and the OEM that 
currently does the repair work. And I am not familiar with all 
of the different methods, but public-private partnership is 
certainly one of them. But the degree to which they continue to 
rely on the OEMs I think will vary, depot by depot.
    What we will, though, continue to need to do is, we will 
over time need to continue to rely on the OEMs to conduct some 
of that repair work, as well as relying upon the OCONUS depots, 
as you mentioned, to do some fraction of the work as well.
    What I can tell you is that, for the workloads that have 
been activated to date, my data suggests that 67 percent of the 
work for those parts and components is currently flowing 
through those depots, with the remainder going back to the 
OEMs.
    So, once we have stood them up, we are using them, some of 
them at 100 percent, some of them at less. But, in aggregate, 
about two-thirds of the work that is currently being done for 
those parts that have been activated is being done by the 
organic depots.
    Mr. Garamendi. Of the total cost of the maintenance, how 
much of that is OEM, how much of that is organic? Or do you 
have that information at all? In other words, where can you 
reduce the costs on the maintenance side?
    General Fick. Yeah. So, my options and opportunities to 
reduce cost on the maintenance side really come in four 
buckets.
    The first of those is that sustaining support that we 
talked about. It is the field support engineers and field 
support representatives on the flight line, and it is ALIS 
administrators. So, as we work the transition from ALIS to ODIN 
and we end up with an ODIN that is much more user-friendly than 
ALIS is, we will start to see the number of ALIS administrators 
come down and, I like to say, dollars walk on two feet. And 
then those ALIS administrators walk off the flight line, and we 
end up just using our organic folks to do that work. So that is 
one big opportunity.
    The second opportunity, as I mentioned before--sorry, sir, 
you weren't in the room. The second opportunity is really U.S. 
military maintenance manpower. Right? An aircraft, by its 
nature, requires a number of skill sets to be utilized--
launching aircraft, recovering aircraft, performing maintenance 
on those aircraft. And, by the aircraft's design, to Ms. 
Maurer's point, some of those things are fixed, at this point, 
you know, 20 years down the road----
    Mr. Garamendi. Excuse me.
    General Fick [continuing]. But--sir.
    Mr. Garamendi. You are very rapidly going past time 
allotted. Our chairman is getting anxious----
    General Fick. Sorry.
    Mr. Garamendi [continuing]. And I am having trouble 
following you. But you said there are four pieces.
    General Fick. Right. The third piece is air vehicle parts, 
and the fourth piece is propulsion system parts. And----
    Mr. Garamendi. I would appreciate a memo from you on those 
four which you have identified as the four keys to reduce the 
cost of maintaining these aircraft.
    General Fick. Yes, sir.
    [The information referred to can be found in the Appendix 
on page 193.]
    Mr. Garamendi. And it doesn't have to be a great deal of 
detail, but I would like to put into my little watch-it list 
the four key items that you have identified to reduce the cost. 
Okay?
    General Fick. Absolutely.
    Mr. Garamendi. And secondly, we already know from Ms. 
Maurer that you have been asked by Ms. Speier, if there are 19 
remaining, how is that going. Okay?
    I yield back.
    Mr. Norcross. Mr. Garamendi, we will come around again.
    I saw we were joined by our colleague, Mark Veasey. And, as 
I looked at his district, he has a lot of great things down 
there, including the Lockheed Martin facility, which is a well-
oiled machine, with the IAM [International Association of 
Machinists and Aerospace Workers] representing them. But he 
also has the Dallas Cowboys, so he is in mixed company there.
    Mr. Veasey. Mr. Chairman----
    Mr. Norcross. So, I will defer the rest of my comments, but 
please.
    Mr. Veasey. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. And very 
appropriate for you to mention the Dallas Cowboys in a HASC 
[House Armed Services Committee] hearing, as they are America's 
team. So, we appreciate that.
    Lieutenant General Fick, the mission capable and fully 
mission capable rate are often used as measures of readiness 
for the F-35. Can you talk about the difference between the two 
and why FMC is regularly lower than MC?
    General Fick. Yes, sir.
    The mission capable rate is--both of them use as their base 
the number of aircraft that are on the flight line of the unit 
being considered. And, really, this is a unit-by-unit measure, 
but it is the number of tails that they actually have on the 
flight line.
    The mission capable rate takes the number of aircraft that 
are capable of performing one of the missions, at least one of 
the missions, in the unit's document, divided by that total 
number.
    And so that is typically a higher fraction or a higher 
percentage than a fully mission capable aircraft, because the 
fully mission capable aircraft requires that all of the 
missions that the unit must execute must be executable by that 
aircraft for it to be declared fully mission capable.
    Mr. Veasey. Okay.
    General Fick. Does that make sense?
    Mr. Veasey. Yeah, that does. Yeah, that does make sense.
    General Fick. Okay.
    Mr. Veasey. So, are you seeing improvements in the 
readiness of the F-35 fleet? And can you share some news with 
the committee about the mission capable rates that you are 
seeing, particularly in the operational units? Because I have 
heard they have been trending as high as 90 percent for 
deployed units.
    General Fick. Absolutely, sir.
    So, we have been seeing increases, both MC and FMC 
increases, between 2019 and 2020, and they are not 
insignificant. Across the fleet, we saw the average in 2019 go 
from 63.2 percent, from an MC perspective, to 68.5 percent. 
From an FMC, or fully mission capable, perspective, we saw that 
go from 33\1/2\ percent to just shy of 37 percent.
    So that number, to me, is still unsatisfying, but it is 
moving in the right direction.
    Mr. Veasey. Right.
    General Fick. If you look down at the service specifics, at 
the variant specifics, you see a little bit of a different 
story. Because what you see from a U.S. Air Force F-35A 
perspective is that the MC rate is above 73 percent. You see 
the FMC rate is above 54 percent. And both of those are 10 
percent jumps over last year. But if at the fleet level we are 
only up by 5 percent, that means that somebody else isn't quite 
doing so well.
    And those are, right now, the Marine Corps and the Navy, 
with their Bravos and Charlies, are moving very, very small, if 
at all. As a matter of fact, I think we stepped backwards just 
a little bit with the Navy this past year, from just over 59 to 
just under 59 percent, from an MC perspective.
    So, it is a sensitive metric. It goes base by base and unit 
by unit, and it varies across the enterprise.
    Mr. Veasey. Okay. Okay.
    General Fick. And General Abba may be able to amplify a 
little bit.
    Mr. Veasey. Yeah, please, General Abba.
    General Abba. Thank you, Congressman.
    As General Fick alluded to, aggregation of data versus 
looking at unit-level specifics tells very, very different 
stories over time.
    For over the 18 months that our Hill Air Force Base airmen 
were deployed, flying combat sorties, 4,000 combat sorties, 
20,000 combat hours, those 3 units collectively averaged just 
shy of 75 percent fully mission capable while they were 
deployed.
    But, even within these data sets, there are lots of various 
trails we could go down, because even the Air Force fleet is 
divided between our combat-coded units, the ones that have 
forward-deployed combat responsibilities, and our testing and 
training fleet. And our testing and training fleet doesn't tend 
to be as healthy as our combat-coded fleets are.
    There are many reasons for that, not the least of which is, 
as we accept new airplanes into our fleet, we push them forward 
into the combat units. And as the weapons systems matured, the 
newer jets have learned a lot of lessons from their 
predecessors, if you will, in production. So, the airplanes 
become, you know, much more reliable.
    You know, on this airplane, the newer-lot airplanes that we 
are receiving actually have the best break rate in the United 
States Air Force, down below 4 percent. So, when the airplanes 
get airborne, they are landing what we call Code 1; they are 
coming back very healthy.
    So how we dissect this problem to examine the readiness 
elements of that is really key, and each of the users has their 
own unique experience. I will tell you that, dating back at 
least to January of 2020, the Air Force combat-coded fully 
mission capable average has never been below 60 percent.
    Mr. Veasey. Yeah.
    Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 
Thank you.
    Mr. Norcross. John.
    Mr. Garamendi. General Abba, you are into an issue that has 
been on my mind for some time. Not all of these aircraft are 
the same. And I would appreciate from the joint office, as well 
as from the Air Force and the Navy and the Marine Corps, a 
differentiation of the various blocks through time.
    And if your analysis of the operations in the Middle East 
indicate that the newer planes were performing at a higher 
function and the older planes are not going to be used for that 
purpose but rather for training, we need to understand this. 
And it may lead to a better feeling, or not. But if you can 
differentiate on the block by block.
    General Flick. Sir, absolutely, we can do that. We actually 
have--we have data that shows lot by lot----
    Mr. Garamendi. I am sorry. I have been listening too long. 
My hearing was never good at the outset. But I am going to want 
to listen to what you say, so if you could articulate a little 
better or a little louder, it would be helpful.
    General Fick. So, sir, we have data that will show lot by 
lot and base by base or installation by installation what the 
MC and FMC rates are. We track that very, very closely. And we 
can provide those data to you and your staffs directly so that 
can you see that. Because it is, as General Abba mentioned--you 
see the older tails not performing as well as the newer tails.
    That was actually one of the things that we looked at very, 
very closely when we decided to accelerate that transition of 
our early TR1 [Tech Refresh 1] jets into a TR2 [Tech Refresh 2] 
configuration. So we actually accelerated that process by about 
13 or 14 months. And so now we are talking about TR3, right, 
but we still had TR1 jets in the fleet until the September 
timeframe. And that was when we inducted the last TR1 tail into 
a modification to turn it into a TR2.
    Why did we do that? Because the TR2 jets are able to use 
the newest software, the newest prognostic self-management 
maint--P-H-M--prognostic self-management algorithms, and 
electronic warfare systems. So that allowed us to take those 
systems that historically did not perform very well, get them 
off the tail, put the new hardware in, and move forward.
    So, we are doing things like that to actively manage the 
fleet to try to ensure that we are up to date and getting the 
most reliable jets out that we can.
    Mr. Garamendi. So, the granularity of the analysis would be 
helpful to us.
    The other--you said--and I hadn't considered this--you are 
talking place by place. Are you referring to the Army, Navy, 
Marine Corps, or, within the Air Force, various sectors that 
are better than others? And if so, why is it?
    General Fick. Yes, sir. We track the sustainment metrics 
across the fleet. Literally, we have the data tail by tail, but 
we typically aggregate it at the squadron level so that you can 
see by location, by country, by squadron even, what their 
performance actually is.
    Mr. Garamendi. Thank you very much.
    I yield.
    Mr. Norcross. Mark, anything else? You good?
    We just want to thank all of the men and women who have 
been working so hard to make this a successful program, 
literally service men and women from around the world, in a 
pandemic. It is not short on us how special that is, and for 
your service, much appreciated.
    I think this was very helpful. We have identified some 
issues, but, also, there are some very good things going on 
with this aircraft. It is certainly the most capable in the 
world. We just need to make it a little bit more capable, as we 
say.
    So, Ms. Maurer, thank you, from GAO; from Lockheed Martin, 
Mr. Ulmer; Mr. Bromberg from Pratt & Whitney.
    And the last thing that I will say is, we are all in this 
together. We need to make this work, and together we will.
    With that, we are adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 1:37 p.m., the subcommittees were 
adjourned.]
     
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                            A P P E N D I X

                             April 22, 2021

      
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              PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

                             April 22, 2021

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                   DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

                             April 22, 2021

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              WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING

                              THE HEARING

                             April 22, 2021

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            RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. NORCROSS

    Mr. Ulmer. In line with Department of Defense guidance, Lockheed 
Martin continues moving away from Turkish suppliers as their existing 
contracts expire and fully qualified alternatives are identified. At 
the time of the hearing, we had stood up alternate sources for 814 of 
817 parts. The qualification effort has since completed, and we now 
have a qualified non-Turkish source available for all 817 parts. Final 
delivery from Turkish suppliers is forecasted to be the end of March 
2022. When it comes to the split of domestic versus foreign sources, 
the new alternative sources are split 56% domestic sources and 44% 
international sources. Of note: 24% of the total sources in Turkey are 
Fokker harnesses. These were dual sourced in the Netherlands and Turkey 
and are all now single sourced in the Netherlands.   [See page 34.]
    Mr. Bromberg. The 188 parts referenced during the testimony were 
re-sourced, with most now being resourced to multiple suppliers, 
resulting in 377 total part number resourcing efforts, with roughly 77% 
going to U.S. sources and the remaining 23% to international sources. A 
breakdown by part number and percentage can be found below. Note for 
none required below, the two parts in question had multiple sources, 
including one non-Turkish source, and the additional load was given to 
the other existing source. 
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

  [See page 35.]

    General Fick. The DOD Joint Service Specification Guide (JSSG-
2007A) provides the framework for the sand ingestion requirement for 
the JSF Propulsion System's Performance-Based Specification.
    The F135-PW-100 (CTOL/CV) engine successfully passed the sand 
ingestion testing requirement defined in JSSG 2007C of 2 hours of fine 
and coarse sand concentration while the F135-PW-600 (STOVL) passed a 
test that covered specific Middle East sand composition in addition to 
the coarse and fine sand. Both engines maintained their structural 
integrity and at least 90% of intermediate thrust and operability 
requirements throughout this testing--passing the JSF Propulsion 
Performance Based Specification requirement.
    With that said, the JSSG-2007C and previous specification guides 
did not adequately define test protocols sufficient to identify unique 
chemical vulnerabilities with respect to the turbine coatings and the 
time required for these vulnerabilities to manifest in all 
environmental conditions. DOD has only started to understand the nature 
of durability vulnerabilities and the ways to verify them in the past 
decade. In light of this learning process, the JPO subjected the F135 
to coarse, fine and Middle East sand particle tests. The engine 
successfully passed these qualification requirements. Subsequently, in 
2018, investigations into Israeli engines suffering from early turbine 
coating degradation identified the top layer of the thermal barrier 
coating susceptibility to Middle East sand chemical composition. Pratt 
& Whiney addressed this susceptibility with a new engineering 
configuration coating change to a more Middle East sand resistant 
coating. These changes were incorporated into the production engines in 
January 2020, and into engine spares in May 2020   [See page 48.]
                                 ______
                                 
              RESPONSE TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. BACON
    Mr. Ulmer. The UAE program will deliver aircraft in the latter half 
of the decade--after the overall F-35 program has reached peak 
production rate and is coming down in yearly delivery aircraft 
quantities, having satisfied early U.S. and partner demand for 
recapitalizing their 4th generation fighter fleets. The F-35 production 
system is designed to work most efficiently near the peak rate of 156 
aircraft per year. This production system includes a vast diverse 
supply chain that is roughly 75% U.S. suppliers and 25% international. 
As the overall program comes down from peak capacity there will be cost 
pressure to keep this global production system at peak efficiency. 
While the UAE program details are still being finalized, we believe 
aircraft deliveries will occur at approximately 10 aircraft per year 
for a 5-year period and could represent a significant savings to all 
our customers. While the savings in sustainment arena are harder to 
quantify, we believe it is generally accepted that there will be 
savings due to larger critical mass and improved logistics and repair 
efficiencies associated with fundamental economic order of quantities 
benefit   [See page 37.]
                                 ______
                                 
             RESPONSE TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. BERGMAN
    Mr. Bromberg. There is a PW engine model in the simulator that 
Lockheed Martin pays a license fee for; however, nothing related to the 
model is causing a delay. [See page 36.]
            RESPONSE TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MS. SHERRILL
    Mr. Ulmer. The tyranny of distance and the adversary threats in the 
INDOPACOM AOR are challenging and stressing for all platforms--even the 
most advanced 5th gen and next gen weapons systems still in 
development. The F-35 is an affordable, lethal, and survivable platform 
capable of operating at the edge of the fight--and it is present and 
capable today in numbers. The aircraft has ability to carry both long-
range weapons and fuel tanks that extend range in an operationally 
significant fashion. To address your weapons question directly, the F-
35 is currently able to carry four advanced medium-range air-to-air 
missiles (AMRAAM) within the weapons bays of the aircraft and two 
advanced short range (Sidewinder) missiles externally. Both of these 
Block 3 capabilities are being upgraded in Block 4 to network-enabled 
capability and several other improvements to their functionality and 
lethality that are expected to deliver mid-2024. Moreover, the Joint 
Program Office has recently committed to proceeding with a program that 
will increase the internal carriage capability of AMRAAM for F-35A and 
F-35C. F-35 currently carries six 500# class weapons, including GBU-12 
and the moving-target capable, dual-mode, GBU-49. It also has 
capability to carry two 1000# or 2000# class GPS-Guided weapons, in 
addition to the Joint Standoff (glide) Weapon (JSOW). The F35A also 
carries the Small Diameter Bomb I. Block 4 will add two improved air-
ground capabilities to U.S. aircraft. First is addition of the quad-
pack, tri-mode seeker, Small Diameter Bomb (SDB II), which basic 
capability is expected to deliver to the F-35B in 2022, with full 
network-enabled capability to all three variants in 2024. Second is the 
addition of Laser Joint Direct Attack Munition (LJDAM). Finally, two 
additional capabilities are in risk reduction phase, which will bring 
advanced seeker and standoff capabilities to the aircraft. Advanced 
Anti-Radiation Guided Missile is a replacement for the current HARM 
system with increased range and other capabilities. Joint Air-Surface 
Standoff Missile (JASSM) has three variants and would bring a standoff 
capability to the F-35, albeit external only, and we appreciate 
Congress providing $10 million in Fiscal Year 2021 to support the 
integration of JASSM onto the F-35. Lastly, the aircraft will be 
undergoing a modification in Lot 15 that will provide structural 
modification to the weapons bays that will enable increased internal 
air-air carriage as well as Advanced Anti-radiation Guided Missile 
(AARGM.) LM is investing strongly in these future capabilities, and in 
the digital transformation methods that will enable more rapid 
integration onto the platform. Our analysis shows that 5th generation 
weapons combined with 5th generation aircraft provides a clear 
advantage and is a game-changer for the warfighter. Therefore, F-35 
advanced capability insertion programs are underway to maintain the 
technological ``step ahead'' of peer adversaries. The delivery of these 
cutting-edge warfighting technologies is needed to outpace rapidly 
advancing Chinese and Russian technologies--they are a national 
security imperative and offer the cheapest path to deter adversaries. 
Wargames that play jets without these capabilities tell the story of 
why we need to consciously invest to pace the rapid technological 
developments of peer adversaries. Now, more than ever, we need to fund 
the development of advanced capabilities that keep us ahead of the 
threat and at the lowest cost-per-effect   [See page 29.]
                                 ______
                                 
              RESPONSE TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. MOORE
    Mr. Ulmer. TR3 Hardware is planned for delivery beginning in Lot 15 
in 2023. There is schedule risk that we are working closely with the 
JPO and the USAF to mitigate. It is Lockheed Martin's plan and intent 
to deliver TR3 configured aircraft per the requirements in our Lot 15 
contract. Aircraft delivered prior to Lot 15 are candidates for 
updates, with each customer defining their retrofit requirement. It is 
our understanding that the USAF intent is to bring the majority of 
their F-35 fleet up to a TR-3 baseline. Retrofits are planned to begin 
in 2024. The USAF is best suited to answer the specifics of this 
question. Block 4 capabilities are delivered with both hardware and 
software, with Block 4 capabilities delivering to the warfighter now 
via software and continuing through hardware updates planned for 
upcoming Lots. We have had ongoing dialog with the Air Force from the 
technical engineering standpoint for retrofit of TR-3 and Block 4 
capabilities for their fleet of F-35s. At this time, I would have to 
defer to the USAF for the extent of future retrofits   [See page 40.]
                                 ______
                                 
           RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. GARAMENDI
    General Fick. Purpose  The purpose of the white paper is to provide 
information related to F-35 variant and fleet level performance 
metrics, and the Fee earned associated with that performance in 2020.
    This document identifies the metrics used in the CY20 Annualized 
Sustainment Contract in Section 1. Section 2 includes tables that show 
how performance against those metrics was reflected in fee CY20 
Performance Metrics awarded. Finally, Section 3 shows a time history of 
select metrics, comparing performance in CY20 with that in CY19.   [See 
page 52.]
    [The document referred to can be found in the Appendix on page 
179.]
    General Fick. The four major areas of sustainment cost mentioned in 
the hearing include: 1) airframe parts and repairs; 2) engine parts and 
repairs; 3) organic manpower & operations; and 4) sustaining support. 
In general, total aircraft inventory (TAI) and flight hours (FH) are 
the most significant drivers of these costs, but utilization rates and 
timeline of operations are also major components. Lower level drivers 
also exist and are discussed below. The JPO has initiatives underway to 
actively reduce or optimize the costs in each of these areas.
    1.  The first area of cost is airframe parts and repairs and refers 
to the Lockheed Martin (LM) costs associated with maintenance. It 
includes organizational maintenance and support (i.e. the cost of 
materials and other costs used to maintain the system) as well as costs 
related to component depot maintenance. The main cost drivers for this 
area are component repair and replenishment pricing, and part 
reliability. These maintenance related costs are expected to contribute 
16% of the CPTPY metric at Steady State (DOD FY36-37) in CY12$.
    2.  The second area of cost is engine parts and repairs and refers 
to the Pratt and Whitney (P&W) costs associated with maintenance. For 
the P&W scope, the main cost drivers include scheduled engine overhauls 
and unscheduled repairs. These maintenance related costs are expected 
to contribute 18% of the CPTPY metric at Steady State (DOD FY36-37) in 
CY12$.
          The JPO has instituted several programs aimed at reducing 
these costs. With LM, the Reliability and Maintainability Improvement 
Program (RMIP) identifies and selects parts and/or processes which, 
when improved, lead to increased aircraft availability and/or reduced 
cost. A similar program exists for Propulsion, the Component 
Improvement Program (CIP), which drives reduction in parts consumption 
by improving engineering performance. Additional projects are underway 
throughout the program to improve reliability, expand repair capacity 
and velocity, and reduce repair timelines.
    3.  The third area of cost is organic manpower and operations and 
refers to the cost of operators, maintainers, and other support labor 
such as security, logistics, safety, and engineering assigned to 
operating units. The other significant portion of this cost is unit-
operating material, which is largely fuel. The main cost drivers in 
this area are the number of maintainers at the squadron level and fuel 
consumption. These unit level costs are expected to contribute 25% for 
manpower, and 16% for operations, of the CPTPY metric at Steady State 
(DOD FY36-37) in CY12$.
          The JPO, alongside LM, P&W, and the U.S. Services are 
actively working to enable the reduction of unit level (organic) 
manpower and fuel consumption required for the F-35. In winter of 2020, 
the JPO kicked off an initiative to examine the current levels of 
organic labor assigned to F-35 units. Specifically, business cases are 
underway to understand prioritization of Prognosis Health Management 
(PHM) requirements to enable labor efficiency by providing a more user 
friendly and maintainable aircraft. The team is also examining man-
hours to complete tasks with the focus on best practices across the F-
35 enterprise that promulgate thru training and tech pub updates. The 
Services are also performing labor studies to understand how to 
optimize labor within the units. Lastly, the JPO and P&W are exploring 
key initiatives such as the Compressor High Efficiency 3-D Aero 
initiative which should improve durability in the compressor, 
combustor, and turbine and have a direct impact on fuel requirements.
    4.  The fourth area of cost is Sustaining Support, which provides 
the required support labor that enables aircraft operations and 
maintenance. A key driver in this area is shared labor to support 
enterprise operations, sustaining engineering, and logistics and unique 
labor to support site and squadron operations. For F-35, the bulk of 
these costs are found in the personnel on the flight line and are 
composed of LM and P&W field service engineers, field service 
representatives, and ALIS administrators, as well as instructors and 
training & course materials. These costs are expected to contribute 13% 
of the CPTPY metric at Steady State (DOD FY36-37) in CY12$.
          The JPO has several initiatives across the enterprise aimed 
at reducing this portion of sustainment cost. One of the most important 
initiatives is the ALIS to ODIN evolution, which aims to reduce the 
ALIS labor footprint and achieve higher levels of efficiency and 
availability on the flight line. Another example of a JPO program aimed 
at reducing costs is the development of the F-35's Next Gen Mission 
Planning Program. This critical development effort is focused on 
reducing the number of Offboard Mission Support (OMS) administrators 
through a deliberate reduction in the F-35's mission planning hardware 
footprint and on upgrading the aircraft's mission planning software 
architecture to make it easier for mission planning teams to program 
operational missions. Finally, the Training Systems program office is 
working to implement the Lightning Learning Environment initiative to 
streamline training activity for the pilots and maintainers.
    The remaining areas of sustainment cost related to CPTPY are for 
the cost of hardware and software updates that occur after fielding, 
and the government non-maintenance consumables, transportation & 
warehousing, demilitarization, and disposal. These costs are expected 
to contribute the remaining 12% of the CPTPY metric at Steady State 
(DOD FY36-37) in CY12$   [See page 67.]
     
=======================================================================


              QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING

                             April 22, 2021

=======================================================================

                   QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. TURNER

    Mr. Turner. Mr. Ulmer, in the opening statements of the hearing 
last week there were a few items on operations and support costs that I 
would like you to respond to regarding operations and support cost:
    (1) has additional aircraft added to the production line impacted 
your ability to scale to support the F-35 operational fleet, If so--
how, and if not, what are the biggest challenges to scaling to support 
the sustainment enterprise for the program; and
    (2) compared to the cost to the cost of fourth generation aircraft 
(defining assumptions you make to compare apples to apples across the 
various aircraft programs) how does the current operations and support 
costs today (TY$) for the F-35 compare to other aircraft programs like 
the F-15C, F-15EX, and F-16.
    Mr. Ulmer. (1) has additional aircraft added to the production line 
impacted your ability to scale to support the F-35 operational fleet . 
. . If so--how, and if not, what are the biggest challenges to scaling 
to support the sustainment enterprise for the program
    The additional aircraft delivered each year from production has not 
impacted our ability to scale the fleet. We have been planning for that 
production ramp and have been able to deliver the infrastructure to 
support the delivery of those jets to our customers. As we added 120 
aircraft to the fleet in 2020 and another 134 in 2019, we have been 
able to deliver consistent and improved readiness levels to meet our 
contractual commitments and reduce our O&S CpFH each year for the last 
5 years and by a total of 44% since 2015. The biggest challenge facing 
the programs ability to improve aircraft readiness today is having the 
required dedicated repair capacity for the total demands forecasted to 
support the global fleet. Today, the USG component repair depots once 
fully operational by late 2024 are projected to only be able to support 
between 40-50% of the global fleet demands. We are actively working 
with the JPO on solutions to augment the organic capacity with both 
international component repair and repair capacity at our suppliers. LM 
believes we must partner with the USG to not only ensure we are 
developing the organic capabilities within the DOD, but ensuring we 
have enough capacity to meet the repair demands of the entire global F-
35 enterprise.
    (2) Compared to the cost to the cost of fourth generation aircraft 
(defining assumptions you make to compare apples to apples across the 
various aircraft programs) how does the current operations and support 
costs today (TY$) for the F-35 compare to other aircraft programs like 
the F-15C, F-15EX, and F-16.
    LM has insight into the F-35 cost we control and manage, but 
enterprise cost values to include propulsion, DOD operational costs, as 
well as costs of other weapon systems should be provided by the U.S. 
government. LM does not have access to that information or the USG cost 
reporting systems. Additionally, comparing ``apples to apples'' of 4th 
and 5th gen aircrafts has proven to be difficult because of the 
different sustainment solutions, advanced capabilities internal to the 
F-35 and how the Services aggregate and report O&S costs across the 
various weapon systems. For example, an F35A coming off the production 
assembly line has all of the sensor and weapons capability built into 
the airframe, within the skin of the aircraft, to execute the mission 
sets. For legacy 4th generation aircraft this is not the case. The 4th 
generation sensors and pylons are procured and sustained separately 
from the aircraft in terms of acquisition and O&S cost.
    Mr. Turner. Lieutenant General Fick, Lockheed Martin stated several 
times that it has reduced the cost of the portion of the operations and 
support cost that it controls by 44% over the last 5 years, and will 
reduce another 40% over the next 5 years. What has the government and 
Pratt & Whitney done in that same timeframe to attack costs that they 
control, and actions that are planned for the next 5 years to attack 
sustainment costs. Mr. Bromberg, please provide your response to the 
portion of the costs that Pratt & Whitney controls.
    General Fick. Affordability is one of the top priorities for the F-
35 program and the stand-up of the F-35 Affordability Directorate has 
provided a centralized team to provide support to Program Management 
Offices (PMOs) to address our affordability challenges. The F-35 JPO, 
through the Affordability Directorate, is currently updating the F-35 
Enterprise Affordability Strategy document. The updated strategy spans 
the entire life cycle and maps each of the five PMOs' cost reduction 
initiatives, timelines, resource requirements, assumptions, and risks 
against applicable affordability targets and Service provided 
affordability constraints. The JPO Executive Leadership Team and 
Propulsion PMO understand the criticality of targeting affordability in 
the Propulsion system; propulsion costs comprise a full 20% of our 
sustainment costs, and costs are projected to grow over the next 10-15 
years.
    Pratt & Whitney (P&W) content comprises 20% of DOD Steady State 
(FY36-37) CPTPY(CY12$). The program currently assesses the propulsion 
contribution to total Cost Per Flying Hour (CPFH) will increase from 
$4.7K \1\ in 2021 to $6.2K in 2033 (CY12$), based on the program's 
initial wave of scheduled engine overhauls. Recognizing this 
unacceptable cost growth, the Propulsion PMO and Affordability 
Directorate are taking proactive actions to reverse this course in 
order to achieve the Service's Affordability Constraints.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ $4.7k and $6.2k comes from ACE 2021v1.0
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    To help drive affordability into the program, the Propulsion PMO 
has established CPFH and Cost Per Tail Per Year (CPTPY) targets. The 
near-term target is to reduce the propulsionrelated CPFH by 30% over 
the next five years (by 2025); long-term targets are still in work. In 
the pursuit of these targets, the Propulsion team is assessing 64 
individual initiatives through the affordability process; those 
selected for implementation should be fielded within the next five 
years.
    The Propulsion PMO is dedicated to meeting their cost targets and 
effectively executing the path forward, utilizing and maturing the 
Battle for Billions (BfB) \2\ Propulsion Affordability plan. The BfB 
Affordability plan is a newly established, long-term affordability 
initiative that specifically looks at sustainment cost savings in 
scheduled and unscheduled overhauls. It is founded upon lessons learned 
and cost savings discovered from the F-22 Raptor engine program.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \2\ Program to utilize lessons learned accomplishments, based on 
legacy systems like the F119 Affordability reduction successes.

Propulsion Costs Decreased Over the Last Five Years
    Despte the projections at steady state, the JPO and P&W have 
already collaborated to jointly achieve a 35% reduction in DOD CPFH 
over the course of the last five years.
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]


Propulsion Costs Over the Next Five Years
    Looking at the next five years, the Propulsion PMO has established 
a 30% CPFH reduction target. In pursuit of this target, the Propulsion 
PMO is assessing 64 Cost-Reduction Initiatives (CRIs), Component 
Improvement Program (CIP) activities, and Research and Technology (R&T) 
initiatives to actively reduce or optimize the costs associated with 
Propulsion sustainment. These initiatives include collaborative 
modifications to our annual sustainment contract to motivate cost 
reduction initiatives in the 2022-2025 timeframe, with focus areas on 
Power Module Overhaul, Depot Cost & Repairs, Material Cost, and engine 
Time on Wing.
    The table below highlights the status of the 64 initiatives in the 
Affordability process, along with their estimated Year of Fleet 
fielding. 49 of the 64 initiatives are funded and the PMO is assessing 
options to fund the remaining 15 CRIs.
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

   The initiatives can be grouped into the following areas:
    a. Parts Price & Quantity Reduction: Maximizing the CIP, which 
drives reduction in parts consumption by improving engineering 
performance.
    b. Decrease Maintenance Costs:
        i. Specific programs to improve reliability, expand repair 
        capacity and velocity, and reduce repair timelines
        ii. Focus on reducing costs and timing of unscheduled engine 
        overhauls
        iii. Focus on decreasing the engine maintenance costs
    c. Sustainment performance and cost improvements such as small 
maintenance plan changes implemented through Joint Technical Data 
updates, process improvements implemented through Sustainment Operating 
instructions, Data Quality and Integrity Management process 
improvements and provisioning/Logistic Control Number change.
    d. Key cost reduction initiatives that are targeting improving 
durability in the compressor, combustor, and turbine that have a direct 
impact on fuel requirements.
    e. Utilization of PBL Contracting Strategy; the objective of the 
PBL will be to increase material availability; decreased logistics 
response times; decreased repair turn-around-times; and major 
reductions in awaiting-parts problems.
    f. Investigating the delayering of the supply chain.

Summary
    The F-35 JPO and its Propulsion PMO continue to expand efforts to 
identify affordability opportunities and implement cost reduction 
initiatives. The Propulsion PMO is refining an Affordability Plan with 
a process to identify and fund sustainment CRIs, which will continually 
feed the pipeline and assist the Warfighter in achieving expected 
performance within defined budget constraints.
                                 ______
                                 
                    QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. MOORE
    Mr. Moore. Does the FY22 budget adequately fund the requirement for 
expendable countermeasures? Training and combat?
    Mr. Bromberg. This is not relevant to the propulsion system.
    Mr. Moore. Does the FY22 budget adequately fund the requirement for 
expendable countermeasures? Training and combat?
    General Fick. Following the official release of the President's 
Budget for FY22 last week, DOD and the F-35 Joint Program Office will 
support congressional engagements and discuss specifics of the FY22 
budget request, including the adequacy of funding for expendable 
training and combat countermeasures. We support the $715 billion 
Department of Defense budget request. Funding contained in the request 
aims to advance key DOD priorities to defend the nation, innovate and 
modernize the Department, build resiliency and readiness, and take care 
of people.
      Defends the Nation. The discretionary request addresses 
threats to the Nation by prioritizing the need to counter the pacing 
threat from China as the Department's top challenge, deterring nation-
state threats emanating from Russia, Iran, and North Korea, funding 
investments in long-range strike capabilities to bolster deterrence and 
improve survivability, and promoting climate resilience and energy 
efficiencies.
      Innovates and Modernizes. The discretionary request makes 
key investments in technology and modernizes the force. The Department 
will support defense research and development to spur innovation, 
optimize U.S. Navy shipbuilding, modernize the nuclear deterrent, and 
invest in hypersonics, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, 
microelectronics, and quantum science. In order to prioritize these key 
investments, the Department will propose to redirect resources to its 
top priority programs, platforms, and systems by divesting legacy 
systems with less utility in current and future threat environments.
      Maintains and Enhances Readiness. Our Soldiers, Sailors, 
Airmen, Marines, and Guardians remain the best trained and equipped 
force in the world and are always ready to fulfill our most solemn 
obligation to protect the security of the American people. The 
discretionary request maintains and enhances readiness while addressing 
threats to readiness, including hate group activity within the 
military, and prioritizing strong protections against harassment and 
discrimination.
    Mr. Moore. Does the FY22 budget adequately fund the requirement for 
expendable countermeasures? Training and combat?
    General Abba. Current Air Force inventory and funded procurement 
will provide sufficient quantities of training and combat expendable 
countermeasures through at least 2031. The AF will continue to assess 
requirements based on actual and projected expenditures.

                                  [all]