[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                                     

                         [H.A.S.C. No. 118-49] 
                         
                         

                        
                         

                    F-35 ACQUISITION PROGRAM UPDATE

                               __________



                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                        SUBCOMMITTEE ON TACTICAL  
                          AIR AND LAND FORCES

                                 OF THE

                      COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 
                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION
                               __________

                              HEARING HELD

                           DECEMBER 12, 2023





                                     
              [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                                     
  



                               ------- 
                               
                 U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 

56-026                   WASHINGTON : 2024 
















              SUBCOMMITTEE ON TACTICAL AIR AND LAND FORCES

                 ROBERT J. WITTMAN, Virginia, Chairman

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio              DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey
DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado               JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut
SAM GRAVES, Missouri                 RUBEN GALLEGO, Arizona
DON BACON, Nebraska                  SALUD O. CARBAJAL, California
LISA C. McCLAIN, Michigan            MIKIE SHERRILL, New Jersey
PAT FALLON, Texas                    PATRICK RYAN, New York
CARLOS A. GIMENEZ, Florida           JEFF JACKSON, North Carolina
NICK LaLOTA, New York                STEVEN HORSFORD, Nevada
RICHARD McCORMICK, Georgia

                 Heath Bope, Professional Staff Member
                Jay Vallario, Professional Staff Member
                    Brooke Alred, Research Assistant 
                    
                    
                    
                    
                    
                    
                    
                    
                    
                    
                    
                    
                            C O N T E N T S

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                                                                   Page

              STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS

Norcross, Hon. Donald, a Representative from New Jersey, Ranking 
  Member, Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces...........     2
Wittman, Hon. Robert J., a Representative from Virginia, 
  Chairman, Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces.........     1

                               WITNESSES

LaPlante, Hon. William A., Under Secretary of Defense for 
  Acquisition and Sustainment, Office of the Secretary of Defense     4
Ludwigson, Jon, Director, Contracting and National Security 
  Acquisitions, U.S. Government Accountability Office............     7
Schmidt, Lt Gen Michael J., USAF, Program Executive Officer and 
  Director for the F-35 Lightning II Program, Department of 
  Defense........................................................     6

                                APPENDIX

Prepared Statements:

    LaPlante, Hon. William A.....................................    31
    Ludwigson, Jon...............................................    63
    Schmidt, Lt Gen Michael J....................................    41

Documents Submitted for the Record:

    [There were no Documents submitted.]

Witness Responses to Questions Asked During the Hearing:

    [There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.]

Questions Submitted by Members Post Hearing:

    Mr. Courtney.................................................    81
 
                    F-35 ACQUISITION PROGRAM UPDATE

                              ----------                              

                  House of Representatives,
                       Committee on Armed Services,
              Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces,
                        Washington, DC, Tuesday, December 12, 2023.
    The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:40 p.m., in 
room 2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Robert J. 
Wittman (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

 OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT J. WITTMAN, A REPRESENTATIVE 
FROM VIRGINIA, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON TACTICAL AIR AND LAND 
FORCES

    Mr. Wittman. I call the Subcommittee on Tactical Air and 
Land Forces to order. I would like to welcome everybody to our 
last subcommittee hearing of the year to receive an update on 
the F-35 program.
    Given that we started the 118th Congress with our first 
hearing on tactical fighter aircraft, it is very fitting that 
we finish this first session of the 118th Congress discussing 
what the Department notes as the cornerstone of its future 
tactical fighter aircraft fleet, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.
    I thank our witnesses today for testifying this afternoon 
and look forward to your testimony. As I stated throughout this 
year, the National Defense Strategy is clear in its focus on 
China as our Nation's pacing threat.
    And given the continuing provocative actions of the Chinese 
that we've all witnessed in the Pacific theater this year, it 
is critically important that we continue to evaluate our 
military capabilities to ensure we are postured for robust 
deterrence and, when necessary, prosecute combat operations to 
overwhelmingly prevail against any aggressor that tests our 
Nation's military resolve.
    As I emphasized this past spring while reviewing the 
tactical fighter aircraft plans for each of our military 
services, two common threads were evident. First, our fighter 
force structure continues on the decrease. And second, we are 
not able to deliver replacement aircraft at affordable prices 
to achieve similar quantities going forward.
    Meanwhile, our adversaries continue to outpace us, building 
and fielding their own lethal fighter aircraft capacities and 
capability.
    As it relates to the F-35 program, this subcommittee has 
made clear our expectations in the oversight of key areas of 
this program.
    Technical Refresh 3, better known as TR-3, hardware 
upgrades and Block 4 software capability development, air 
system and propulsion modernization, depot standup, and supply 
chain maturations, operations and sustainment cost reduction, 
and increasing the full mission capability rates above what the 
F-35 fleet has demonstrated today are all critical elements of 
what must be addressed in this program going forward.
    While program challenges and setbacks always seem to 
dominate the discussion, I would be remiss if I didn't 
acknowledge some of the F-35 program's successes from the past 
year.
    With the nearly $1 billion in additional investment last 
year, propulsion system mission capability rates have 
increased, and the non-mission capable rates of the aircraft 
due to power module removals has decreased.
    The program has brought on new foreign military sales 
customers, expanding the worldwide capability and commonality 
for operations with our partners and allies.
    And most recently the F-35 Joint Program Office has moved 
at a breakneck speed to support our closest partner and ally in 
the Middle East, Israel.
    They have done this by accelerating F-35 weapons 
capabilities and increasing spare part supply rates in their 
fight against the atrocities committed by Hamas.
    And now as I pivot to reviewing some of the program's 
continuing challenges, I want to unequivocally state upfront 
that the F-35 will be the most advanced tactical fighter 
aircraft that the U.S. has ever built.
    But our patience with the program development is wearing 
thin. Once again, we're going to talk about the prior planned 
schedules that have slipped and costs that have unexpectedly 
grown.
    I want to focus on four issues today. First, TR-3 
development and fielding challenges, Second, propulsion and 
thermal management system modernization and requirements. 
Third, sustainment strategy planning, given the recent setback 
regarding the performance-based logistic supply contract. And 
fourth, potential strategies related to the development and 
testing of software and mission capabilities, both now and in 
the future.
    My friends, the F-35 is a technological marvel, but the 
delays in fielding required capabilities are disturbing. As the 
Department of Defense's largest acquisition program, I am 
committed to providing rigorous oversight to deliver required 
capability at a reasonable cost.
    With that, I turn to my good friend from New Jersey, and 
distinguished ranking member of the subcommittee, Mr. Norcross.

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

    Mr. Norcross. Thank you, Chairman, and I would like to 
welcome our witnesses. This subcommittee's last F-35 oversight 
hearing was 2\1/2\ years ago. Given the fact that it is the 
DOD's [Department of Defense's] largest weapon program, I think 
this public hearing is long overdue, and I look forward to our 
government witnesses updating Congress and the public on the F-
35.
    The F-35 is one of [the], if not the, most capable fighters 
on the planet. When I speak to military leaders around the 
world, I always hear how much they enjoy the flying F-35, how 
impressed they are with its performance. And I don't want that 
to be lost in today's hearing. It is a very impressive fighter.
    But what's important is that we continue to deliver future 
capabilities to operational forces as soon as possible and at a 
cost that the Department can afford. That's what this hearing 
is about, oversight, the execution of development, production, 
sustainment of this key weapon.
    Two months ago marked the 22nd anniversary of the start of 
the F-35 development. Today, the program continues to suffer 
unforeseen cost overruns and schedule delay. Much needed 
Technical Refresh 3, or TR-3, will ultimately deliver Block 4 
capabilities, and it's not ready. And the government ceased to 
accept deliveries of this new aircraft until TR-3 testing is 
complete.
    Moreover, the Department notified the committee a few 
months ago of another scheduled delay that pushes delivery of 
TR-3 to mid-2024. Assuming this schedule holds, and that's a 
big assumption, that would result in an almost an 18-month 
delay and almost $1 billion of cost overrun.
    I hope our witnesses today will explain the root causes of 
these delays and update us on executing the new schedule.
    We need to deliver Block 4 capabilities to the operational 
forces ASAP [as soon as possible], and TR-3 is the hardware 
that supports future capabilities.
    The F-35 program is also in early development stages of the 
future engine necessary to sustain the aircraft through the F-
35's life cycle. This issue is broader than just a discussion 
on an engine. It encompasses propulsion, system cooling, 
electrical power generation, and electrical distribution. We 
want this system and its air system subprogram to meet its 
cost, schedule, and performance metrics. We want it to be on 
time and on budget. And we want it to meet the requirements.
    I look forward to hearing from the witnesses regarding this 
development effort and hope that they will clearly identify 
critical paths to success and any mitigating efforts to drive 
out or minimize the execution risk.
    Turning to sustainment, fiscal year 2022 NDAA [National 
Defense Authorization Act] prohibited the Department from 
entering into a multiyear performance-based logistic and 
sustainment contract unless and until the Secretary of Defense 
certified to Congress that this contract would either reduce 
sustainment costs or increase readiness.
    I understand the Department recently ceased negotiations 
with Lockheed Martin regarding a potential sustainment and 
indicated the primary reasons is they could not meet the 
congressionally mandated certification requirements.
    I find it puzzling that a multiyear sustainment contract as 
compared to the annual sustainment contract could not either 
deliver and drive down costs or increase readiness.
    Ultimately, sustainment costs will determine whether the 
Department can afford to procure its objective fleet of 1,763 
aircraft for the Air Force, 420 for the Marines, and 273 for 
the Navy. I think it would be helpful for our witnesses to 
update the subcommittee on the sustainment strategy and explain 
how the strategy will deliver the readiness we need at an 
affordable cost.
    And finally, to our GAO [U.S. Government Accountability 
Office] witness, Mr. Ludwigson, we are very interested in your 
perspective on many of these thorny issues. This subcommittee 
relies heavily on the GAO to provide independent objective 
analysis of the program execution. And your testimony here 
today will help the subcommittee determine where to best focus 
our attention as we go forward.
    In closing, Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee 
remains supportive of this program. But the Department must 
continue to work to drive out schedule delays and avoid those 
cost overruns. And I would like to thank our witnesses for 
their appearance today, and I look forward to their testimony. 
And I yield back.
    Mr. Wittman. I'd like to thank Mr. Norcross, our ranking 
member, and now I would like to introduce our witnesses.
    We have today with us the Honorable William LaPlante, Under 
Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, and the 
Milestone Decision Authority for the F-35 program; Lieutenant 
General Michael Schmidt, F-35 Program Executive Officer; and 
Mr. Jon Ludwigson, director of the Contracting and National 
Security Acquisition team for the Government Accounting 
Offices.
    Gentlemen, with that, I will go to your testimony. Dr. 
LaPlante.

   STATEMENT OF HON. WILLIAM A. LaPLANTE, UNDER SECRETARY OF 
    DEFENSE FOR ACQUISITION AND SUSTAINMENT, OFFICE OF THE 
    SECRETARY OF DEFENSE

    Dr. LaPlante. Thank you, Chairman Wittman, Ranking Member 
Norcross, and thanks to the committee for your key role in the 
oversight. And I think just already in the opening statements, 
you show a balanced view of both the accomplishments of F-35 
but the real challenges. And I'm going to address some of those 
one by one in this opening and then hopefully lead later on 
with my colleagues with more and back and forth to your 
questions.
    The F-35 delivers the most lethal and survivable tactical 
fighter to U.S. allies and partners. I think it is in the world 
actually the most lethal. We have still work to do because of 
the changing threat and the rapidly changing threat.
    We are now up to--I have to remind ourselves--nine FMS 
[foreign military sales] partners. We have seven partners in 
the partnership. In addition to that, nine FMS partners with 
two more on the way. So we are doing something there that 
obviously partners and allies are seeing the benefit of this.
    And so with that happening, and we have nearly 1,000 of 
these airplanes around the world, including our partners and 
allies, we have these challenges. And I'm going to go through 
and kind of address each one at a high level, but then later we 
can get to it. And I will try to follow the format of the 
chairman on his four items.
    A reminder that we are also approaching a full-rate 
production decision now that we're done with the joint 
simulation environment mission trials.
    This would--right now if it's on track, it's going to be in 
March of this next year. It's important to do that. It's 
important to close that out. And this is subject to the IOT&E 
[initial operational test and evaluation] and independent costs 
estimates.
    Technology Refresh 3. The chairman and the ranking member 
correctly identified this as the top modernization issue right 
now in the program. A reminder again is that TR-3 is the 
hardware upgrade from TR-2, which as I remember I was putting 
that back in when I was the Air Force acquisition executive in 
2013. But then the software that goes with it, and as the 
committee knows, and we will be able to talk to, while there 
has been significant progress, the software maturity is not 
such that it runs on the hardware in a manner that we are yet 
to be satisfied with, and hence that's the issue of the delay 
that was mentioned.
    So that's point number one. Point number two, I will just 
cover the propulsion. There has been a lot of work, and this 
committee, I know, has been very interested in the Engine Core 
Upgrade work that's been done as well as to extend the engine 
life of the F135 engine. But also the cooling and thermal 
management requirements to get to some future power 
requirements that these new systems we need for the threat have 
to deliver. So there is a lot of work that has been done there 
in getting that started.
    And, of course, the related, I would call it adjacent 
issue, of the technology of the AETP [Adaptive Engine 
Transition Program] program, which we have been tracking like 
for 10 years and where that goes. We can talk about all of 
that.
    Mentioned the sustainment. And the core of that, of course, 
was to get to a good and effective performance-based logistics 
[PBL] contract at the system level. And we took very seriously 
the NDAA guidance about having it certified both for 
performance and cost.
    And simply put, in the negotiations we have gone through 
with the industry, up until about a month ago, it was clear we 
were not going to get a satisfied cost proposal with 
performance that we would feel comfortable with and that we had 
to take the team that was very busy working on that and put 
them on essentially extending where we are now and then come 
back to the PBL. And simply, we were not going to approve a PBL 
that did not perform well and didn't get the cost savings.
    And for the ranking member and how you expressed your 
question about how could we not have a better price and 
performance, I completely agree with you. That almost took the 
words out of my mouth when we made this decision. So we have 
not given up on it, but we have got a lot more to do there with 
industry.
    The other piece on sustainment that I will be happy to talk 
about in the last year, and this is, I would say, a positive 
thing, is that we have been doing sustainment tabletop 
exercises assuming a contested environment, particularly one in 
the Indo-Pacific, and we are learning a lot. So we have done 
that there.
    And finally, what is central to this discussion on PBL, and 
frankly has been essential to the program since I have been 
with the program, has been the data itself, and the quality of 
the data, and the ownership of inventories and understanding 
the inventories. It impacts lots of things, including our 
ability to pass an audit.
    This has also been a factor in the PBL negotiations is 
making sure that the data that we are getting from industry is 
something that we can rely on. So we are going to continue to 
push on that.
    The legislation of 356 that allowed us to get data from the 
contractor has been very helpful, and we look forward to 
working with you further on that.
    I will close my testimony. I look forward to your 
questions. Thanks.
    [The prepared statement of Dr. LaPlante can be found in the 
Appendix on page 31.]
    Mr. Wittman. Thank you, Dr. LaPlante. We will now go to 
Lieutenant General Schmidt.

STATEMENT OF LT GEN MICHAEL J. SCHMIDT, USAF, PROGRAM EXECUTIVE 
 OFFICER AND DIRECTOR FOR THE F-35 LIGHTNING II PROGRAM, 
 DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

    General Schmidt. Sir, thank you. Chairman Wittman, Ranking 
Member Norcross, and distinguished members of the subcommittee, 
thank you for the opportunity to provide an update on F-35 
development and production plans and progress as well as 
strategies to maximize readiness and reduce sustainment costs.
    I am grateful that topics such as Tech Refresh 3, engine 
power and cooling modernization, test infrastructure, and 
sustainment are priorities for this subcommittee. And I assure 
you they are also top priorities of mine.
    Today, our Lightning Sustainment Center is delivering 
global support to U.S. services, F-35 partners, and foreign 
military sales customers around the world.
    We are executing an F-35 war on readiness, war on cost, and 
war on cyber to get after key program challenges. We are 
placing strategic focus on depot stand-up, organic warehousing 
and transportation, and logistics information system 
modernization.
    Meanwhile, organic pathfinder initiatives are driving cost-
effectiveness as we de-layer our F-35 supply chain. It is clear 
there is no shortage of innovation and progress being achieved 
across this enterprise. And there is undoubtedly much work to 
be done.
    While maximizing readiness is at the forefront of my mind 
today, our program-wide focus on TR-3 stability and Block 4 
delivery aims to ensure this air system is ready and able to 
win tomorrow's advanced fight if called upon.
    We are pursuing game-changing modeling and simulation 
efforts to minimize requirements for costly real-world flight 
tests and training. We are combating challenges associated with 
concurrency to deliver the necessary capabilities on relevant 
timelines in future lots. And we are closing in on Milestone C 
in a full-rate production decision.
    I look forward to the opportunity to update you on progress 
and plans associated with these and other efforts today.
    Since I last testified before this subcommittee, the F-35 
program has overcome significant challenges and made tremendous 
progress. Many recent operational and programmatic 
accomplishments are detailed in my written testimony.
    Since March, the F-35 program has stood up capability at 
four new bases and on one new ship. To date, F-35 users have 
logged over 750,000 flight hours and 450,000 sorties around the 
globe. F-35 capability and international collaboration are 
increasing every single day.
    Within 10 years, there will be over 600 F-35s operating in 
the European theater alone, and fewer than 60 of them will be 
U.S. owned. The F-35 partnership's shared commitment and 
mission brings game-changing value not only for coalition 
combat, but for our taxpayers as well.
    I am tremendously proud of our multinational F-35 JPO 
[Joint Program Office] team members who deliver, innovate, and 
grow every single day. Together, we are leaning into this 
''dig-in'' mentality as we enable fifth-generation capability 
and pursue readiness and excellence across the F-35 fleet.
    Thank you once again for the opportunity to join Dr. 
LaPlante and Mr. Ludwigson as we discuss F-35 progress, 
challenges, and opportunities.
    This subcommittee's support and oversight are essential to 
the success of this program.
    [The prepared statement of General Schmidt can be found in 
the Appendix on page 41.]
    Mr. Wittman. Thank you, Lieutenant General Schmidt. And now 
we will go to Mr. Ludwigson.

STATEMENT OF JON LUDWIGSON, DIRECTOR, CONTRACTING AND NATIONAL 
 SECURITY ACQUISITIONS, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE

    Mr. Ludwigson. Chairman Wittman, Ranking Member Norcross, 
thank you for the opportunity to discuss our work examining the 
F-35.
    The F-35 remains critical to U.S. national security and to 
that of our international partners and allies. After years of 
development and the completion of testing, the baseline program 
is poised to move out of the acquisition phase.
    Completing baseline development is good news, but the work 
to keep the F-35 ahead of our potential adversaries continues. 
The program is committed to modernize the aircraft through the 
Block 4 and TR-3 efforts aimed at providing enhanced 
capabilities to keep ahead of evolving threats.
    The program also plans to upgrade the cooling system, 
engine, and related systems intending to reduce wear on the 
engine and reduce costs while enhancing the foundation of the 
F-35 to receive advancements developed through Block 4 and 
potentially beyond. Both of these modernization efforts are 
critical to the future of the F-35.
    Over the past several years, we have reported multiple 
concerns about Block 4 and TR-3 and made recommendations aimed 
at improving them. In particular, we have reported that the 
program was struggling to develop and field Block 4 
capabilities and made numerous recommendations, including 
updating the schedule to better reflect actual development 
timeframes and to use better tools for monitoring software 
development.
    Earlier this year, we reported that the limited 
availability of test aircraft posed a risk to the Block 4 test 
schedule and noted the program was planning on increasing the 
number of test aircraft to address this.
    Over the years, we have also raised higher level concerns 
about how Block 4 is organized. Originally, Block 4 was 
comprised of 66 capabilities, expected to be completed for 
$10.6 billion by 2026.
    In 2016, at the inception of Block 4, we recommended that 
DOD take steps to manage Block 4 as a separate program and that 
Congress consider directing DOD to do so. We believe this would 
provide more visibility and the foundation to hold the program 
accountable for meeting cost, schedule, and performance goals.
    The program did not implement our recommendation, but 
Congress took steps to require enhanced reporting for Block 4.
    However, we reported that the program has routinely made 
changes to Block 4. And last year we reported the most recent 
data indicated Block 4 had grown to 80 capabilities and grown 
to $16.5 billion and wasn't expected to be completed until 
2029.
    This evolving picture has made it difficult to identify 
whether cost and schedule increases are a result of increasing 
scope, developmental challenges, contractor challenges, or 
something else.
    Despite enhanced reporting, we continue to face challenges 
tracking costs for Block 4 capabilities. In our report earlier 
this year, we recommended that the program take steps to 
improve how it reports Block 4 costs for individual 
capabilities.
    With our impending transition out of acquisition, the 
concerns we raised are increased in importance. And we continue 
to believe that the effort would benefit from enhanced 
oversight as a separate program as we recommended.
    More recently, the program has taken steps to address 
longstanding problems with the aircraft cooling system, the 
engine, and related systems.
    The original requirements for cooling proved to be 
incorrect and accelerated wear and higher maintenance costs 
were the result.
    Over the past year, the program examined options for 
addressing this. Earlier this year, we reported that the 
analysis done to examine these issues lacked some key 
information. We identified five recommendations aimed at 
enhancing the basis for proceeding with this modernization 
effort.
    For example, we recommended the program office define its 
estimated future cooling needs, conduct an independent 
technology readiness assessment, and obtain independent cost 
estimates.
    Similar to our Block 4 concerns, we also reported that 
modernization of the cooling system, engine, and related 
systems would benefit from enhanced oversight. We recommended 
that the program take steps to manage these efforts as a 
separate program and raised a matter for Congress to consider 
requiring the Department to do so.
    As the program transitions out of acquisition, it could be 
difficult to oversee these efforts without traditional 
acquisition management tools.
    Much has been accomplished in the development of the F-35, 
but the modernization efforts appear costly, complex, and 
critical to staying ahead of our potential adversaries. As 
such, we believe providing sufficient visibility into these 
efforts will be important for timely and impactful 
congressional oversight.
    Our past recommendations could help Congress oversee these 
efforts as the baseline program transitions out of the 
acquisition phase.
    Chairman Wittman, Ranking Member Norcross, this concludes 
my statement. I would be happy to answer any questions the 
subcommittee members may have.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Ludwigson can be found in 
the Appendix on page 63.]
    Mr. Wittman. Thank you, Mr. Ludwigson. I want to thank our 
witnesses. And General Schmidt, I will begin with you. We had 
you all here last spring. You said the delivery date for TR-3 
upgrade would be between December and April. Now it looks like 
it's April to June.
    I want to drill down and get from you, what are the 
specific areas that the contractors are having difficulty in 
delivering the TR-3 upgrade? And I want to ask specifically 
about what are they doing in trying to replicate the aircraft's 
operational systems in the laboratory?
    And it seems like to me that this ought to be a fairly 
simple paradigm because contractors have done it for other 
platforms. They've done it for Arleigh Burke destroyers with 
Aegis systems. They have done it for Virginia-class submarines. 
So it is not like this is an unknown.
    Can you give me some drill down about why there is a 
failure there to deliver this? Is there something in the 
laboratories? Is there something there that is not connecting 
in how this TR-3 upgrade is being pursued?
    General Schmidt. Yes, sir. That is a great question. You 
know, as I discussed previously, sir, you are absolutely 
correct. Our labs are not properly representing the flight 
environment, and there is way too much discovery happening in 
flight test.
    Dr. LaPlante directed a tech baseline review that started 
last summer that they are just wrapping up. And we will get the 
results.
    Just in summary, sir, we have seen way too much discovery 
in flight tests. Also I would say in this program concurrency 
has been an issue. But especially when we introduce concurrency 
in the form of hardware in this program, we have a history in 
this program of not being able to, in a timely manner, deliver 
hardware fully integrated from a software program, software 
aspect into the program.
    We are better on the tactical application side, but when we 
introduce hardware into a lot in this program and not have the 
full engineering rigor required to identify what the work scope 
is required to deliver in that specific lot, we run into 
problems in this program.
    And I am happy to discuss, sir, what we are doing going 
forward if you would like me to do that?
    Mr. Wittman. Yeah, I would. I would like to know what the 
course of action to correct this, to be able to get back on 
track. Because this doesn't only affect TR-3, but it also 
affects Block 4. And as we have aircraft back up and we are 
looking at what are the capabilities of these aircraft once 
they get the TR-3 upgrade, are they going to be as capable as 
TR-2 aircraft? I think that question, too, comes up. So I 
wanted to get your specifics about that situation.
    General Schmidt. In the near term, sir, relative to the 
stability issues that we are seeing, we are working through 
them. I wish, I wish I had all of the solutions in place that 
proved to me that when I do something in the lab, it is going 
to show up that way in the air.
    We have a number of fixes addressing the stability 
challenges. We will get to a stable, capable, maintainable 
airplane here. The data tells me it will be in the middle of 
spring. But I would have had a more positive answer 6 months 
ago of when I thought it would be. So I don't have a super 
solid I can guarantee you this date.
    I will tell you that going forward--by the way, the 
competition in the labs and the limited capacity in the labs 
between the latest TR-2 software that has great capabilities 
that will go out to the field early next year, it will be good 
to get it out of the lab.
    We are competing right now between the first version of TR-
3 hardware and software and the next version, which takes that 
combat capability in the field that we're about to deliver 
early in the year and puts it into a TR-3 version. So we are 
trying to create capacity in the labs to do that.
    I will say that for all Block 4 capabilities going forward 
the team has done, I think, a very good job of taking the many 
contracts we had across all of the Block 4 capabilities and 
putting rigorous capability decision points with rigorous 
system engineering processes so that we don't get ourselves 
into a situation where we commit hardware or software--but 
specifically hardware--to a specific lot without all the rigors 
required to say I can put that into that lot and have that 
contractually binding with Lockheed or Pratt & Whitney, 
depending on which it may be.
    Mr. Wittman. I think this also begs the question about the 
enterprise on advance systems, especially F-35. It has taken 
now, we are at year 18 if you count every minute of when it 
started from concept to where we are now, and then making sure 
this platform is operational. It really begs the question, if 
we are going to do things quickly at the speed of relevance, 
software needs to inform hardware. That is the way things need 
to go.
    Listen, a great hardware platform, but it can't do the 
things that we need for it to do if it is not software enabled. 
So we want to make sure that that is the baseline.
    Let me go to performance-based logistics. Dr. LaPlante, I 
wanted to get your mindset on this.
    We looked at a performance-based logistics contract to be 
able to reduce cost, to have more certainty in the supply of 
spare parts, mission capability metrics. As you know, the non-
mission capable rates due to lack of parts is currently at 42.5 
percent, absolutely unacceptable.
    We looked at what you are proposing, and now you seem to be 
moving away from performance-based logistics because you say it 
is going to be more expensive than doing sort of one-off, one 
aircraft mission capable maintenance and mission capability 
performance efforts.
    Can you explain where negotiations have led you to come to 
that point now and why a performance-based logistics contract 
is not the way to go forward?
    Dr. LaPlante. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Well, to be 
clear, we have not made the decision to walk away from 
performance-based logistics overall at the system level. We had 
to pause just because of the manpower we had that was doing 
negotiation to extend the current contract. We have not walked 
away from the system-level performance-based logistics.
    Where we were--to do the pause, as I mentioned earlier, is 
in the proposals that we had received from industry at that 
time, they were at not sufficient cost savings, if any, and not 
performance savings. And so we knew we wanted to wrap up the 
negotiations by about February to be able to switch to the new 
contract and just didn't have the time.
    So we put pause on the PBL to focus on extending the 
current contracting. But I say overall, this is the way we 
understand it. The key thing is, you know, with performance-
based logistics is, number one, picking the right metric----
    Mr. Wittman. Yeah.
    General Schmidt [continuing]. To measure the contractor 
with. And you also want to do it of some period of time, 5 
years, even longer.
    Sometimes at the system level, a performance-based 
logistics is very hard to do, and I'll explain an example why. 
If the contractor themselves or the program office doesn't have 
control over the metric. I was talking to one of my colleagues 
in another country who had one system-level performance-based 
logistics that was actually not working for him because the 
metric was in there. It was things like flying hours. And he 
didn't have control of it nor did the contractor. So sometimes 
you have to get the right metric.
    Where we have been in the metrics with this discussion is 
something called the gross issue effectiveness rate 
requirements. With the percentage of total demands filled at 
the base with onsite inventory divided by total number of 
demands and supply response time.
    We think those are good metrics. But for us to get a good 
idea on whether we will meet the metrics, that data has to be 
something that is reliable. And that was part of the issue, but 
we haven't given up on it.
    The other piece, and this may be the case, is there is 
something called in the sustainment community market basket 
approaches where you decide maybe for subsystems or what we 
might call systems to do a PBL, but not have one single PBL for 
the entire plane. So we are looking at all of that.
    And actually, we were looking at this as part of section 
142, because section 142 that you all helped us with really 
directed us to begin really standing up the organic government 
management of sustainment. And to do that, the government has 
to know what it's going to do itself organically and what it's 
going to contract to do.
    And so a market basket approach may be there. It's just we 
were not going to wrap up the negotiation on this one in the 
time we needed. And I wouldn't have been able to satisfy the 
requirement to have it certified for the price savings. But we 
are not walking away from it overall.
    Mr. Wittman. I think you hit the nail on the head as far as 
metrics. I would encourage you to look at other organizations 
out there that do performance-based logistics. When you go to 
the airport, the airlines make sure they keep their aircraft in 
the air. They are pretty aggressive about making sure that when 
that aircraft is at the gate--now some of us had experiences 
where the aircraft gets rolled away from the gate, but their 
operational availability is pretty impressive. So they don't 
make money if they're not in the air. So I would argue there 
are a lot of things that could be learned from that. Obviously 
tactical aircraft is different than those passenger aircraft, 
but I think some of the concepts are probably the same.
    With that, I will go to our ranking member, Mr. Norcross.
    Mr. Norcross. Thank you, Chairman. Mr. Ludwigson, in your 
hearing statement, you referenced Block 4 development effort in 
2016. Baseline was at 66 capabilities at a cost of $10.6 
billion to be delivered in 2026, that baseline.
    Presently, Block 4 is comprised of 80 capabilities at a 
cost of $16-1/2 billion to be delivered 3 years late, 2029. 
Help us understand. You talked briefly about some of the 
suggestions that you have made and some of the issues, but the 
root causes for this, drill down a little bit more. Help us 
understand what those delays, the cost overruns for delivery, 
how do we address them given the history as a lesson for us?
    Mr. Ludwigson. Yes, sir. That is a great question. Block 4 
when it was conceived, I think, was this longitudinal idea that 
you would just continually add new capabilities as the threat 
evolved.
    Unfortunately, that's hard to do in a public sector space 
where you have got--the Congress has to decide to provide the 
money and provide the other support necessary to proceed. And 
it was that--and I should say that 66 capabilities number, that 
is something that was difficult for us to get our hands around 
from the beginning. But the original----
    Mr. Norcross. The original requirement of 66?
    Mr. Ludwigson. The original 66 capabilities is not 
something that I think the program wanted to sort of carry 
forward. They wanted this to be rather an evolving situation. 
And that is what happened because it wasn't bounded with a 
specific set of requirements, a specific limitation in terms of 
this is what it is going to be in terms of composition, cost, 
and schedule.
    It didn't have those baseline sort of documents that you 
would have for a traditional acquisition. And people added 
capabilities or capabilities were unpacked and some may have 
been dropped. And eventually you got to what we report as the 
most recent as 80 capabilities, $16.5 billion, to be completed 
in 2029.
    I think when you get to the root cause, some of the 
challenges that have emerged is because they didn't have 
requirements, they didn't necessarily have a firm sense of what 
was technically achievable. They didn't have a strong basis for 
understanding how long these things were going to take.
    It became a bit of a journey of discovery and took time for 
them to figure out it's actually going to take longer. Software 
development is difficult. And I think they certainly had their 
fair share of difficulties. But some of it was not setting 
realistic expectations for the time that they would deliver it 
and then not executing to meet those or not staffing to meet 
those.
    Mr. Norcross. Thank you. General Schmidt, TR-3 hardware, we 
talked about this at our last hearing as being the major issue 
in trying to get this going. It seems that that now is in 
place. But my question has more to do with not only the rate of 
our current line that is running, but for backfeeding those 
other ones.
    Are we near where we need to be in terms of ramping up for 
those units to be produced so we can not only fill our line 
going forward but also backfill?
    General Schmidt. Thank you, sir. Relative to the TR-3 
hardware itself, the TR-3 hardware is coming up a ramp that is 
not where it needs to be. It is not meeting our contractual 
requirements. And there is really a couple of components within 
the TR-3 hardware that is driving that, but you need all the 
components to make a TR-3 kit.
    The next-generation DAS [Distributed Aperture System], 
which isn't technically part of the TR-3 kit but it is very 
much a part of this lot of capability that's going forward, 
that next-generation DAS hardware is coming pretty well. But 
there are a couple components in TR-3 that needs to come up the 
curve very quickly in order to meet our production and really 
our retrofit requirements after TR-3 is delivered here.
    Mr. Norcross. So just let me understand, it's not where you 
said it contractually should be. So do we have enough to fill 
the line going forward now? And we're missing retrofitting? 
Where are we in that scale?
    General Schmidt. Currently, we do not have enough. There 
were 52 airplanes contractually if TR-3 was fully ready would 
have been delivered by the end of December. Twenty-one of those 
airplanes are--let's say crossed the last stage in the 
production line. The rest of the airplanes are being held in 
general for moving TR-3 hardware around.
    But maybe that gives you the scope of where we're at. 
Again, if we can get these two components to come up, we will 
catch up quickly. But that's where we're at, sir.
    Mr. Norcross. So, we are missing any retrofits, but we are 
not even keeping up moving forward.
    General Schmidt. Well, the retrofits, sir, would start 
later, but when you add production and retrofit, so that 
requires your ramp to go up higher.
    Mr. Norcross. Thank you.
    General Schmidt. Yes, sir.
    Mr. Norcross. Dr. LaPlante, 3 years ago the government 
prime contractor, Lockheed Martin--speaking of benefits, this 
is getting back to the PBL. And just to understand this, 
negotiations have ceased, at least temporarily. You mentioned 
you didn't have the manpower. Drill down that because, you 
know, manpower is extremely important but it falls off the 
table the amount of money for that versus a logistics contract.
    Dr. LaPlante. Thank you for the question, and I appreciate 
the question. Let me--it is basically the team that General 
Schmidt has to do the negotiations and what they focus on. We 
could have surged manpower, that's exactly right, but we talked 
and thought about that. But it was probably not practical. And 
General Schmidt, it is your team. You can maybe talk about 
that.
    General Schmidt. Yes, sir. Happy to. So there is a manpower 
challenge, sir, but part of it is that the people that 
understand and have been in--this has been years of negotiation 
moving forward. Whether it is the PBL or the annual sustainment 
contract, that team of people is rather limited.
    And to include at Lockheed. You know, these are huge 
contracts with quotes from all the suppliers that come in. And 
we definitely got to the point where we had to pivot to 
something. I had to either show Dr. LaPlante that I had a 
closure plan that would get us there by right now or pivot to 
extending our current contracts, otherwise we would be at risk 
of sustaining our fleet.
    I am proud of the team who has been working this 7 days a 
week for a long time. They have closed with Lockheed on a full 
handshake for the first extension, if you will, to March. We 
are quickly closing on the extension to June.
    And as soon as I get that done here in the next, I hope, 
few weeks, we will pivot to me getting back to Dr. LaPlante 
with a plan on how we are going to get back to whatever the 
broader acquisition strategy that in my opinion must be 
incentive-based in order to drive the proper industry behaviors 
and commitments going forward, sir.
    Mr. Norcross. We will pursue that a little bit later on, 
but I want to give the others a chance. I yield back.
    Mr. Wittman. Very good. Thank you, Mr. Norcross. We will 
now go to Mr. LaLota.
    Mr. LaLota. Thank you, Chairman. Thanks to our witnesses 
for being here today. I represent the First Congressional 
District of New York, the eastern end of Long Island. And Long 
Island is the proud supplier of about 50 different F-35 
components. And it is the reason for about 535 jobs. Our folks 
on Long Island make everything from avionics to the landing 
gear of Air Industries in Bay Shore, the town where I grew up.
    I want to talk about supply chain issues. And my first 
question is for Dr. LaPlante.
    Post pandemic, and now with real-world requirements in 
Israel and Ukraine, this committee has spent significant 
resources in an effort to improve our defense industrial supply 
chain.
    Subcommittees like this have brought in experts like 
yourself to gain some lessons learned to improve our 
warfighting capabilities.
    With those lessons learned in mind, can you please tell the 
committee what steps the DOD acquisition folks are taking to 
ensure America's defense industrial base is meeting important 
programs like the F-35?
    Dr. LaPlante. Thank you for the question. Number one, we 
are imminently going to release for the first time ever a 
national defense industrial strategy that has four elements to 
it, also with an action plan following. That's going to be 
released any day now. And one of the four items is all about 
supply chain.
    We have, under the auspices of the supplementals for 
Ukraine, but also under the regular budgetary process, pumped 
billions of dollars into the industrial base and building back 
in key areas.
    For example, Defense Production Act on five key components 
across the industrial base. We have used, I think, up to $800 
million there, whether it's for rare earth batteries, solid 
rocket motors, et cetera. So it is what we do every day. And, 
yes, COVID threw us all for a loop.
    The other piece of this that I would like the committee to 
think about because it is what we are sort of dealing with in 
munitions. Is one of the reasons that you do--one of the 
reasons to do multiyears or block buy, depending on what you 
want to do, is not just the savings in cost. You should get 
savings in cost. But to the stabilization of the supply chain, 
the sub-tier suppliers. Because if they see that they can get 
longer term contracts, it stabilizes them, and it makes them 
less certain.
    To do that, a lot of times you have to put in what's called 
economic order quantity, which think of it as buying bulk, some 
of the parts, the first 1 or 2 years. And that's something 
that--that is what industry does in the commercial world. They 
don't buy things 1 year at a time. And those are things that we 
believe done right will really help with the supply chain, 
including on F-35.
    Mr. LaLota. Thank you and you kind of beat me to my next 
question for Mr. Ludwigson. What can Congress do better to help 
strengthen the supply chain?
    I hear demand signals. We have heard that before. Both 
Chairman Rogers and Chairman Wittman are trying to get us to be 
in a better position with the power of Congress' purse to give 
the industry better demand signals. What else can Congress do 
to help on this issue? Are there issues of regulations or 
whatnot where Congress should endeavor to help strengthen our 
supply chain, Mr. Ludwigson?
    Mr. Ludwigson. I think the progress that has been made with 
getting the baseline program through testing so that it can be 
approved for full-rate production through Milestone C, provides 
a greater degree of certainty. I would defer to General Schmidt 
and Dr. LaPlante to provide comments on that.
    But my impression is that with greater understanding that 
this is--the program has achieved this goal. It is in a better 
position to enter into longer term arrangements, get a better 
understanding of that ramp rate and what the actual production 
rates are going to be as it relates for F-35. That would be one 
of the things that I think is going to be very important is 
that move and the ability to reach those economic order 
quantities that makes sense for the program with a known 
production rate and known experience with maintaining the 
aircraft in the field.
    Mr. LaLota. Thanks. And with the minute I have left 
remaining, I want to switch gears a little bit, get back into 
the field, and look at Israel. Lieutenant General Schmidt, how 
have the F-35s performed in Israel?
    General Schmidt. Sir, in here, I will say absolutely 
outstanding. Their mission capable rates are high. Their full 
mission capable rates are high. As the chairman mentioned, we 
have added some capabilities to that airplane in a very short 
period of time. And our team is doing everything we can to 
continue to move the ball forward there, sir.
    Mr. LaLota. Thanks so much. Chairman, I am almost out of 
time, but Dr. LaPlante, I look forward to reading your report, 
sir. I yield.
    Mr. Wittman. Thank you, Mr. LaLota. We will now go to Mr. 
Courtney.
    Mr. Courtney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I can share with Mr. 
LaLota that I actually did get a sneak preview of the report, 
the industrial base strategy report and, again, I really 
compliment Dr. LaPlante for really doing it really for the 
first time or the first time in many, many years. And, you 
know, it answers the question that frankly every service branch 
is really--needs to get answered.
    So we are about 2\1/2\ months into the fiscal year, 2024 
fiscal year. It doesn't look great that we are going to have a 
budget passed or an appropriations bill passed before 
Christmas. And, you know, then obviously the next cliff is fast 
approaching in January.
    You know, when we talk about the F-35 engine issue and the 
ECU [Engine Core Upgrade] upgrade, again, your budget, just to 
go back to last February or March when it was released, called 
for increasing the ECU line from $75 billion to over--sorry $75 
million to over $400 million was, again, the budget request. 
And the two defense appropriations committee are sort of 
roughly in that ballpark that is there.
    I mean, if, and look at, there has been some other talk 
about it all year--CR [continuing resolution]. I mean, given, 
again, the disparity between those two numbers, that doesn't 
sound pretty in terms of just, you know, moving this program 
along. So I was wondering if you could comment in terms of just 
where would that leave us?
    Dr. LaPlante. Yeah. Well, we all hope it doesn't happen. 
But if we end up there, we may have to relook, and I will defer 
to General Schmidt, at the strategy for funding the engines and 
that work.
    In some ways, the F-35 program is, believe it or not, 
faring a little bit better in CR than other programs because we 
already are in production. I could put a pitch here too. I 
really believe the key to supply chains is also production. And 
the F-35, for all the justified concerns we all have had over 
its program, is doing hot production. It's one of the few 
programs we have that is doing hot production, and it helps 
with the supply chains.
    But, yeah, I would be concerned about the engine. I am also 
concerned about--we are talking about the industrial base, 
about the adaptive engine technology. We mentioned the AETP. I 
have been with that program on and off in the government for 
about 10 years and its predecessors. It has done more or less 
what we have asked it to do. It has gotten 30 percent savings 
in efficiency.
    We just, we are not able, the Department was not able, to 
fund a full-scale development program of that. I hope that 
that, at least that technology keeps going as well. But I also 
defer to General Schmidt to talk about the budgetary 
implications for the engine work.
    General Schmidt. Yes, sir. There are about 600 people at 
Pratt & Whitney that are honestly doing a great job. I was just 
up there a few weeks ago. It is very impressive what they are 
doing to try to quickly go down the road to an Engine Core 
Upgrade program. We need an appropriation to keep that program 
moving forward.
    I also need an appropriation because the power and thermal 
management system part of that, that I think Ranking Member 
Norcross discussed, that program really needs to get started. 
And I really need that funding to have Lockheed and the 
suppliers for a power and thermal management system really work 
through the engineering and all of that. So those are the 
implications. If we don't get an appropriation, I am at a rough 
spot here in a couple of months, sir.
    Mr. Courtney. Well, thank you. I mean, I think that's 
obviously very helpful. So speaking of the power thermal 
management, actually your office put out an RFI [request for 
information] fairly recently, right, for my notes here. It's a 
new PTMS [power and thermal management system] requirement, a 
62-kilowatt threshold and an 80-kilowatt objective of cooling. 
Can you sort of explain what that is sort of in the context of, 
you know, where the program is moving right now, clarify?
    General Schmidt. Yes, sir. Well, those would be the 
requirements, if you will, that we are trying to make sure that 
this airplane can deliver that kind of electrical power to 
support all future upgrades to this aircraft.
    To truly understand what it takes to get to those things, I 
first need to be able to have Lockheed do a full assessment of 
the airplane to understand. So there's the actual power in the 
requirements and then there is how much can every part of this 
airplane handle to include the electrical power system, the 
fuel thermal management system, all of those things that we 
need to get going forward on.
    There are a number of great suppliers of power and thermal 
management systems out there that I want to be in this 
discussion and will be in this discussion. But I got to do some 
really good engineering work first to try to bring all of that 
together.
    Mr. Wittman. Thank you, Mr. Courtney. We will now go to Mr. 
Gimenez.
    Mr. Gimenez. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am going to be 
focusing in on the engine and the engine upgrades. We seem to 
be talking a lot about power and management and cooling and all 
that. But the one thing that I see that is missing from our 
dialogue or conversation is performance. And that is what 
matters to the pilot, to be honest with you.
    And so is it correct that this engine that we currently 
have on the F-35 was built around a platform that was supposed 
to be 30 percent lighter and 13 percent smaller than the 
current platform?
    General Schmidt. Sir, I don't know if those numbers are 
correct or not. You might be----
    Mr. Gimenez. Well, there is obviously something wrong 
because the engine is overheating. And because of the increased 
demands on cooling, et cetera, that the life span of this 
engine is going to be shorter than what we thought. And so 
where are we going? Are we moving on the EEP [Enhanced Engine 
Package] program or are we looking at the AETP program, the new 
engines, or are we looking just to upgrade the engines that we 
have?
    Dr. LaPlante. Yeah. I will hopefully help with the question 
here. We are going with the core, the life extension of the 
core, the 135, as well as the cooling for that engine.
    Let me just say this, not knowing the history that you 
know, so I defer to you. What I have seen in the time I have 
been in this job, and this gets into the requirements issue 
that GAO mentioned, the requirements have changed in thermal 
and power because the threat has changed and the systems that 
have been added to the airplane, even decided to be added in 
the last 5 years, were something we didn't envision 10, 15 
years ago. That's simply true.
    And so, now, you could argue that we--that is an argument 
for a much more modular architecture so you can upgrade when 
the threat changes. But it has changed. The systems that are 
now on the jet or are planning to be on the jet were not 
planned even 10 years ago.
    Mr. Gimenez. I understand that. Now, again, are we looking 
just to upgrade or putting some kind of an add-on to the 
engines that we currently have to manage the problem or are we 
looking at an entirely new engine with new capabilities? And if 
we are not, could you answer why? Because apparently the new 
engine with entirely different capabilities are going to give 
you 30 percent greater range and will give you 20 percent more 
acceleration. And if we're looking at the INDOPACOM [U.S. Indo-
Pacific Command] theater, range is going to be a premium. So 
what are we looking at? Where are you guys heading?
    General Schmidt. Sir, so I absolutely understand the 
question. We did a business case analysis last year. We went 
out--our requirement was to address the life of the engine. 
We're running the engine too hot. Significant costs over the 
life of the engine. And we needed to solve that problem.
    Additionally, we needed power and cooling, additional power 
and cooling capabilities. There was also the Advanced Engine 
Technology Program, which is a very, very promising program, 
sir, from a performance perspective.
    One of the challenges in this program, with the AETP 
program, as we did the business case analysis, is that it is an 
option for the A model and maybe for the C model and doesn't 
work for the B model.
    So if I was going to address all of the requirements of the 
program from a get the life back in the program perspective, 
only the Engine Core Upgrade to the current engine fit that.
    Mr. Gimenez. Could I--I only got so much time.
    General Schmidt. Yes, sir. Sorry.
    Mr. Gimenez. I need to cut you off a second. In terms of 
the numbers of aircraft, A and C versus B, what is the 
percentage on that?
    General Schmidt. The A is significantly higher, sir.
    Mr. Gimenez. And the C?
    General Schmidt. The A is significantly higher, sir.
    Mr. Gimenez. But you said that the--a new engine could fit 
on the A, maybe the C, okay, but not the B. And so we are going 
to say, okay, because we want the--we are going to choose the 
least capable engine of all because of the B, which happens to 
be the smallest number of planes that we have.
    Dr. LaPlante. That was--yeah, what went into the business 
case was lots of things. It also----
    Mr. Gimenez. With all due respect, I am losing time.
    Dr. LaPlante. Okay. Sorry.
    Mr. Gimenez. Okay. So if I am in the jet, and I am the 
fighter pilot, I want the engine that takes me faster and takes 
me longer. And I know about your business thing. And now maybe 
that business argument maybe it should be brought to us and say 
what is it because there has got to be a tradeoff? Is there a 
cost benefit to that upgrade?
    And so, again, we need to delve into this a little bit 
deeper, Mr. Chairman, because I am not convinced that this is 
just a business decision. This is a performance issue, too. And 
for the life of our pilots and the capability of this airplane, 
especially in a theater which we may be finding ourselves in 
conflict is going to need this enhanced capability in the 
future. And thank you. I guess I yield back.
    Mr. Wittman. Very good. Thank you, Mr. Gimenez. We will now 
go to Dr. McCormick.
    Dr. McCormick. Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is for both 
Lieutenant General Schmidt and Dr. LaPlante. Obviously, we have 
seen the aircraft perform very well in Israel. I think they 
were pretty satisfied with its ability to do precision 
munitions exactly where we want it and how we want it.
    This goes back to what they have learned in their 
sustainment side of their aircraft though as they have deployed 
it more than they probably deployed it in recent years, just 
how they are feeling about their sustainment portion of their 
aircraft right now.
    General Schmidt. Yes, sir. I had the opportunity to talk 
with their chief of staff just yesterday. I would say that we 
have a lot--that we are going to learn a lot. They are very 
satisfied with what their performance from a sustainment 
enterprise is giving them.
    I think we could learn a lot from them in terms of the 
quickness with which they are turning airplanes, all of the 
things we are learning ourselves with moving parts around the 
world in support of a conflict.
    So we are committed to--and I am looking forward to, and 
right now, collecting a lot of lessons learned for us, as we 
posture ourselves globally for our--the worldwide F-35 
enterprise sustainment.
    Dr. McCormick. So on that note, actually related note, how 
is that when we scale that out to like an INDOPACOM, you know, 
how do we see that? Or do we have that sustainability 
capability for--we have a lot of things going on right now in a 
lot of different theaters that could blow up very quickly. Do 
we have that capability to ramp up as needed?
    Dr. LaPlante. Yeah, I would add something, and it applies 
to Indo-Pacific and what we are learning from the current 
conflicts. One of the--the chairman talked about software and 
turning software fast. One of the good-news stories in F-35, 
it's still not where it needs to be on these mission data 
files.
    What General Schmidt and his team did in about a week, week 
and a half, is turned around these mission data files. That is 
the brick that goes into the airplane. And that, I think, the 
lessons learned on how you did that can apply all the way 
around the world.
    The other piece, and I mentioned earlier, is that we are 
doing tabletop exercises on sustainment in the Indo-Pacific. 
And what we are learning, not surprisingly, is that we have to 
be able to surge, and this gets back to the PBL. We want the 
PBL to be of something we can surge. So there are a lot of 
lessons that we are learning that may well affect that as well.
    Dr. McCormick. Okay. And with that also, I'm just going to 
go to another related topic, what about critical base shortages 
of impact, like the industrial base, like, materials? Do we 
have materials shortages that could affect, especially 
strategically different countries that control those sort of 
shortages?
    Dr. LaPlante. I would say overall this is just the 
situation in the world right now. Energetics, energetics are a 
key issue around the world right now, whether it is solid 
rocket motors or other TNT [trinitrotoluene] or TNT-like 
things. And I think we are seeing that--we knew we were seeing 
that with 155 and the issue in Ukraine. But that is an issue we 
see everywhere in all the scenarios.
    Dr. McCormick. So are we able to--is there something that 
Congress can do to address that specific--to protect those 
assets?
    Dr. LaPlante. Well, I think helping us with the Defense 
Production Act. We've already used the Defense Production Act 
to fund solid rocket motors and energetics. We need more of 
that. I think we also--then more companies will go into that 
business. So that is where Congress can help us. Thank you.
    Dr. McCormick. I see, secure those raw materials then. 
Okay. Very good. Lieutenant General Schmidt, specific to the 
importance of technological development, can you talk how the 
Engine Core Upgrade currently underway is leveraging 
investments made by the Navy's fuel burn reduction program and 
other advanced development programs?
    General Schmidt. Yes, sir. The fuel burn reduction program 
was very much a precursor to the Engine Core Upgrade program. 
Pratt & Whitney has modeled the entire Engine Core Upgrade 
program. And it is my understanding that very much, sir, the 
fuel reduction program was a significant starter, if you will, 
to help move forward with the Engine Core Upgrade program.
    Dr. McCormick. Okay. I don't think I have enough time for 
another question. But thanks for your time, gentlemen.
    Mr. Wittman. Thank you, Dr. McCormick. I want to pursue 
another round of questioning and then we will head from there 
if folks have questions that need to be answered in the 
classified setting.
    I spoke a little bit earlier about how the enterprise today 
across the Pentagon needs to be a software informed process. 
Obviously, the F-35 is going to be with us for years. We are 
in--essentially from a blank sheet of paper and nearly 22 years 
now from the beginning.
    Gentlemen, can you tell me, and I will start with Dr. 
LaPlante, can you tell me how you plan to pursue the enterprise 
of continued production and maintenance and upgrade of the F-35 
in the current structure where we seem to be hardware driven 
and software is an afterthought. Is there any plan to reverse 
that to make this a software-informed enterprise?
    Are there any plans to use digital twin technology where we 
can immediately test aircraft, download the information and 
make software updates and do that at the speed of relevance? 
Because obviously what's happening with TR-3 is not at the 
speed of relevance with these continued delays. Something has 
to change with the paradigm as to how we operate within this 
particular realm.
    We know that programs like CCA [Collaborative Combat 
Aircraft] are going to be software-informed programs. So can 
you give us some insight as to how you see us changing the 
paradigm for the F-35?
    Dr. LaPlante. Yes. Thank you for the question. It is an 
extremely important question. I co-chaired the Defense Science 
Board study on software acquisition in 2018 that motivated 
going to the new software acquisition pathway where the old 
waterfall techniques that the Department had across everywhere 
needed to be changed to a modern DevSecOps [development, 
security, and operations] iterative with 8 weeks sprints and 
dropping to a minimal viable product.
    One of the first programs that we looked at on the Defense 
Science Board study, with General Schmidt's predecessor, was F-
35. And one of the questions we asked ourselves was could you 
go to modern DevSecOps on the mission software for F-35?
    The challenge that we saw was the architecture. The 
architecture goes back to 2002. It is highly coupled and 
integrated. And it would be--you could do it in portions of it. 
But it was going to be hard to fundamentally do it unless you 
changed the architecture.
    What I am very interested in is Aegis because I grew up at 
Johns Hopkins APL [Applied Physics Laboratory], and we were in 
the Aegis mafia as we called ourselves. And we were very 
frustrated in the other parts of Johns Hopkins that Aegis did 
not go open.
    Well, finally Aegis has gone to an open system. And so I 
have not given up hope that we can go to some degree of open 
system.
    I will also say this, and I will turn it over to General 
Schmidt, on the digital twin. We designed the acquisition 
strategy for B-21 in the wake of the Nunn-McCurdy breach of F-
35. We made sure that that architecture was open. And getting 
to the changes in the threat, the changes to the requirements, 
with an open architecture, you can drop changes very quickly. 
And you can do it by software.
    It is not that F-35 doesn't have software. It has got 30 
million lines of code. It has just got it in a highly 
integrated way. I will turn it over to General Schmidt.
    General Schmidt. Sir, I would only add, and we are just 
getting going here from my perspective. So we do have a digital 
twin, for instance, of the integrated core processor, which has 
helped us out significantly in TR-3. I should have it for the 
entire TR-3 program.
    As we move forward, we are requiring digital models of each 
capability in the Block 4 as part of those capability decision 
points going forward.
    Your point about the architecture and kind of the closed 
software environment that we have and Dr. LaPlante's points, we 
need to eventually get to an open systems architecture. And 
along the way, for sure, we need to figure out how to make sure 
we are taking advantage of, for instance, our services software 
engineering groups to have not only Lockheed working the 
software in this program but the government organic software 
developers who are outstanding.
    Mr. Wittman. Are there additional ways that we can 
encourage the contractors and their mission system suppliers to 
adopt and implement new methodologies to be able to do 
development, testing, and implementation of their changes in 
upgrades to software?
    It just seems like to me that we are in a very archaic and 
antiquated test, failure, retry, test, failure, retry mode 
instead of changing the whole paradigm that has us operating at 
the speed of relevance.
    The technology is there in all these other areas. It just 
seems like for whatever reason, we are still stuck in this 
archaic trap with F-35, and TR-3 unfortunately is the example 
of that.
    I also understand, too, there may be other things we need 
to do to accelerate that. It seems like to me the test beds now 
are aging. Maybe we look at more modern test beds and make sure 
the test beds are aircraft that are dedicated to rigorous 
testing.
    It seems like to me, too, that we have more up-to-date 
technology where we could immediately take streams of data from 
the aircraft, send it directly to programmers on the ground 
that in a digital twin technology can essentially be put into a 
simultaneously run model.
    That information can really be put into the model. And you 
could fly that aircraft this afternoon in some cases and say 
let's try out these software modifications instead of what we 
have today, which is trying this in the lab. It fails in the 
lab. You put it in the aircraft. It crashes in the aircraft. 
You bring it back to the ground and say we have got to do it 
again.
    The trial and error methodology ain't working. And the 
technology is out there all around us to do things differently.
    Can you assure me that we are aggressively pursuing these 
paradigms going forward with how we are doing upgrades to the 
aircraft?
    General Schmidt. Well, first, sir, I would say I thank you 
for the support for replacing our aging flight test aircraft 
themselves because that is very important to include the things 
we put on it to make the data flow better and all of the 
things.
    Relative to our labs, ourlabs--we have a number of 
recommendations that are coming forth as part of the tech 
baseline review. And our teams are working through what kinds 
of investments we should be making in our labs to make them 
more realistic and relevant relative to the flight test 
environment.
    Specifically, it appears to me that Lockheed is making 
significant investments in their future programs that are doing 
a lot of what you described there, sir.
    Dr. LaPlante's Aegis example is another great example. How 
are we making sure? And I wish I had a good answer for you 
because all those things need to be in this program, sir.
    Dr. LaPlante. I will just note that in 2014, when we put 
the RFP [request for proposals] out for what is now the B-21, 
and we said in the RFP you had to have an OMS [open mission 
systems] standard open system, all of the companies, there were 
three of them, two of them were teamed together, that were 
competing for it started putting out press releases on how they 
could do open systems.
    So when you put it in the RFP and you make it part of the 
source selection, it motivates different behavior. The question 
on F-35 given where we are in the program, that is why Aegis is 
so interesting.
    Mr. Wittman. Yes.
    Dr. LaPlante. We can look at that. The other piece I will 
just add is the other thing we said in the study about--the 
software study, it's not just the architecture but something 
called a software factor. And we defined what it was. That is 
where that testing, Mr. Chairman, was done. It was called 
fuzzing. We bombard the code with cloud overnight, and you find 
all these errors, exactly what you said.
    Mr. Wittman. Yeah.
    Dr. LaPlante. They should have a software factory at 
Lockheed Martin.
    Mr. Wittman. No. I think software factory paradigm is 
great. Listen, this isn't a secret how to do this; as you 
pointed out, Aegis has done it for years. The prime contractor 
is the lead on that so it is not like this is a secret sauce 
somewhere that's underneath a pillow that we have to resurrect 
and put back out there.
    This is a known entity. It is done on submarines. It is 
done on surface ships. No reason why it can't be done for F-35. 
So with that, I will turn it over to Mr. Norcross.
    Mr. Norcross. Thank you. General, just to drill down a 
little bit on your statement that up at Pratt & Whitney there 
are 600 people working, yet you are talking about the CR. Those 
600 aren't working on the ECU for the future or 600 dedicated 
people for the ECU upgrade?
    General Schmidt. The ECU for the future, the ECU upgrade.
    Mr. Norcross. Okay.
    General Schmidt. Yes, sir.
    Mr. Norcross. So if they are currently working, and we have 
a CR, how does that impact that other than ramping up?
    General Schmidt. Yes, sir. We are limited to last year's 
funding----
    Mr. Norcross. Right.
    General Schmidt [continuing]. Under the CR. And we are good 
through about February-ish. But at that point, if I don't have 
the funding to keep--and we are supposed to be ramping up 
significantly this year in terms of, you know, investment in 
that program per our plan. So we are capped at the level and 
then we are actually at risk of it running out if we don't have 
an appropriation, sir.
    Mr. Norcross. Nobody wants a CR. But at least we'll 
continue and hopefully get that. And that is what I wanted to 
talk about. And Joe has a question concerning the Defense Act.
    But for this program, we made a decision. We can't fund two 
engines. Agree with it, disagree with it. This is where we are 
heading. Talk to me about some of the technical risks that are 
facing the ECU and how you are addressing that so that we don't 
run into a problem like we are with the TR-3 upgrade.
    General Schmidt. For the program as a whole, I mentioned 
what I think are some of the technical risks is ensuring that 
the--so one of the requirements I have, sir, is that this 
engine program is retrofittable. So we have those power 
requirements, but at the same time our nations and our services 
have said this must be retrofittable.
    So I need to do all the work on the airplane side and the 
power and thermal management system side because if I do run 
into a fuel thermal management system or wiring gauge that 
would require me to completely, you know, tear the airplane 
apart to retrofit the engine, that would drive me to go back to 
the requirements community and say, hey, we got to figure out 
the right balance here on the, you know----
    Mr. Norcross. Are you suggesting that we need those answers 
for both the temperature management and the electrical 
management? That if they don't come in in an area that you can 
accommodate on the existing that we might have to go back to 
the decision we made?
    General Schmidt. Sir, the engine requirements that they are 
designing to are to the worst case requirements of the worst 
case, is what we have directed them to design the engine to.
    And if it turns out that we end up having a power and 
thermal management system that doesn't get to that, it allows 
us to go back, and Pratt & Whitney to go back, and adjust 
because there are changes that they can make in the engine to 
direct power in the gear box that we are going to go towards 
running that to additional performance out of the engine. But 
for right now, we are designing to the most stringent case from 
an aircraft side, sir.
    Mr. Norcross. Okay. I yield back.
    Mr. Wittman. I go to Mr. Courtney.
    Mr. Courtney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And real quick, Dr. 
LaPlante, the exchange that you had a moment ago with Dr. 
McCormick about what can Congress do to sort of deal with the 
issue of these, you know, energetics and critical minerals.
    When we were in California recently, we talked about one 
thing that Congress hopefully is in the process of doing is 
passing the NDAA which has the AUKUS authorization language, 
which will extend the Defense Production Act authorities to 
Australia and the U.K. [United Kingdom] as domestic sources, 
similar to what Canada enjoys today. And actually that is 
really a huge opportunity, particularly with Western Australia 
and the mineral resources that are there. So maybe you can just 
sort of talk about that for a second.
    Dr. LaPlante. Yeah. Thank you, Congressman. It turns out, 
tomorrow, I am meeting with the head of strategic industry of 
Australia, they're in town. And specifically, we are going to 
talk about the provision that is in the NDAA on Defense 
Production Act with Australia. So I think they are very excited 
about it.
    Actually, the national--the industrial strategy that you 
read, we are finding the partners are really interested in 
that, too, because they are looking at things that we have that 
they may want to do.
    We are also getting the same interest from our European 
allies, from NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization], about a 
Defense Production Act like thing for them.
    So a lot of folks are watching us. I think they see what 
this Congress has done and authorities. And I think they have 
seen the effectiveness of it. So I would just thank again, 
thank you all for what you are doing. And I know the 
Australians are very eager to talk to us.
    Mr. Courtney. Again, hopefully we have got about 48 to, you 
know, 72 hours to wrap this up. So with that, I yield back.
    Mr. Wittman. Thank you, Mr. Courtney. Mr. Norcross, any 
other questions? Okay. Very good. Well, I think we are finished 
with our line of questioning. Gentlemen, thank you all so much. 
We are--well, before we close, Mr. Ludwigson, I know that you 
had a comment that you were looking to make there on Mr. 
Norcross' question. So I'm going to yield the floor to you.
    Mr. Ludwigson. Sure. Thank you very much. I think General 
Schmidt did a great job talking about the interconnections 
between the pieces of the puzzle in the power and thermal 
management and engine upgrade question. What we have been 
concerned about is that the program not repeat the mistake that 
got them here, which is that they underestimated the cooling 
requirements.
    Mr. Wittman. Yeah.
    Mr. Ludwigson. Those proved to be wrong. Then they had to 
steal from the engine and that caused them to have to get 
creative. And creativity got expensive in terms of the wear and 
tear on the engine and all of those sort of cascade of events 
that we are here talking about.
    So we think that is why when you look at this, we prefer 
you think about this as an integrated package of changes that 
need to be done, not singularly looking at each piece of the 
puzzle because when you put them together, integration ends up 
being one of the biggest, most difficult pieces of the puzzle. 
Just how do you put it all back together.
    Mr. Wittman. Listen, I think you are spot on. Power, 
thermal management, electrical system, all the different 
elements there of what you do, you know, you can put a larger 
engine in there that generates more power and cooling, but the 
question is is, you know, what other changes may be needed on 
the aircraft itself in order to sustain that?
    And then the big question, I think you all have pointed 
this out, is that what is the end state of the power and 
cooling requirements of the aircraft? So where does it need to 
be before its ESL [extended service life] is expired?
    So there is no use to say, well, you know, we are going to 
build an engine that can do 62 kilowatts and then you go, well, 
gosh, we really needed 80 kilowatts with future upgrades for 
the aircraft because this aircraft is at a price point where we 
cannot afford to go through another engine upgrade.
    If you are going to do it, you want to do it one time. You 
want to determine what are the total costs, as you said, over 
the life cycle of the aircraft. Look at the number of hours 
that you get out of that engine, which obviously we aren't 
getting out of the current engine configuration, because you 
are going to have to do that in order to substantiate the cost 
that it is going to take essentially over a long window of 
time.
    So I think those things are incredibly important questions 
that need to be asked before you take any next step in the 
final engine decision-making.
    Mr. Ludwigson. I think when you face a difficult question, 
the carpenter's analogy springs to mind: measure twice and cut 
once. A pretty useful way to think of it.
    Mr. Wittman. That is exactly right. So any other witnesses 
want to make any additional comments?
    Dr. LaPlante. No. I think you just described to my GAO 
colleague, the fundamental systems engineering challenge is you 
have to get the system engineering right because the coupling 
between subsystems and the effect on that is something that 
often needs attention. And really good systems engineers are 
hard to find as well.
    Mr. Wittman. Yeah. I think it's a matter, too, as you said, 
good systems engineering, good look at, you know, the whole 
element to a performance-based logistics. What do we do over 
the remaining life cycle of this aircraft? We ought to take 
every lesson learned in the first 22 years of this program and 
apply those lessons learned going forward.
    There is no reason why we should have any of these hiccups 
going forward. Goodness knows, we probably experienced every 
one of them that you could in the current history of the 
aircraft. Let's make sure we get it right going forward so.
    Gentleman, thank you all so much. I don't think that there 
is any need for us to go to the SCIF [sensitive compartmented 
information facility]. I think everybody has had their 
questions answered here in this open forum, and the others that 
needed to be answered have been answered previously in the 
SCIF.
    So I want to thank you all so much for joining us. And if 
there is anything that you need from our subcommittee, we stand 
by ready, willing, and able to help. And with that, the 
subcommittee is adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 3:58 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]





      
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                           December 12, 2023 




                           

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              PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

                           December 12, 2023 


                           
                           
                           
                           

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              QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING

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                  QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. COURTNEY

    Mr. Courtney. As we discuss other upgrades needed for the F-35, can 
you confirm that ECU is being designed for any PTMS configuration to 
allow for the current schedule to stay on target?
    Dr. LaPlante and General Schmidt. Yes, the ECU is being designed to 
integrate with all F-35 PTMS configuration concepts currently being 
considered.
    Mr. Courtney. With the RFI released for new PTMS requirements, when 
do you intend to integrate a new PTMS to support the aicraft?
    Dr. LaPlante and General Schmidt. The F-35 acquisition program 
intends to begin the development of an upgraded Power Thermal 
Management System (PTMS) in FY24, with system qualification by 2032 and 
production line cut-in beginning in 2033. Schedule milestones will be 
refined as the PTMS acquisition solution matures.
    Mr. Courtney. Can you explain the PTMU modernization plan and 
timing?
    Dr. LaPlante and General Schmidt. The JPO's near-term priority is 
to fully validate that all PTMU technical requirements can be met with 
a materiel solution, which also supports direction included in the FY24 
NDAA, SEC. 226. F-35 PROPULSION AND THERMAL MANAGEMENT MODERNIZATION 
PROGRAM. The concept development contract is planned to commence this 
summer and will begin competitive PTMU design activities.
    Mr. Courtney. What is the current PTMS cooling capacity requirement 
for Block 4? Has the definition changed? And what is the maximum PTMS 
capacity need over the lifetime of the platform?
    Dr. LaPlante and General Schmidt. The F-35 Lightning II Joint 
Program Office will provide a CUI response directly to the House Armed 
Services Committee.

                                  [all]