All F-35 KPPs Green

All F-35 KPPs Green: Steve O’Bryan, Lockheed Martin’s vice president for F-35 business development, said Friday the stealth fighter program is performing up to snuff. “We are making all our KPPs [key performance parameters] on the F-35,” O’Bryan told reporters during a briefing on the three-service, multinational fighter on the eve of the Navy League conference that starts today in Maryland. O’Bryan said the F-35 is hitting its marks both in terms of the aircraft’s performance and its planned slope of reliability and maintainability. As for the program’s continuing affordability, O’Bryan said, “The key to affordability is to get up the ramp rate as quickly as possible,” and he characterized Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ plan to accelerate the F-35 as one way to do that. O’Bryan said there is “room” in F-35 ramp rates to accommodate even more aircraft in early lots, but it all depends on getting suppliers to increase their rates of production. “It’s not the process” but the materials that will pace the project, he said. Due to long-lead requirements, the earliest lot that could be expanded would be the fifth low-rate initial production tranche, he said. LRIP 5 aircraft will be assembled in 2011. (For more on the F-35’s developmental progression, read Defeat of the Super-Villains, Part1 and Part 2)

—John A. Tirpak

5/4/2009

On the Record

Mission One
"The health and safety of our pilots—all of our pilots—is our utmost priority. Our operational flight surgeons and our medical staff interact with our pilots on a daily basis."
—Brig. Gen. Daniel Wyman, Air Combat Command command surgeon, speaking to reporters during a teleconference, May 9, 2012. He was emphasizing that the Air Force is doing all it can to ensure the safety of F-22 pilots as service officials continue to home in on the cause of why some Raptor pilots have experienced hypoxia-like symptoms in the cockpit like difficulty concentrating, fatigue, headaches, and nausea.

On the Record

Message to Congress
"If you give us force structure back, give us the money, too. Because the quickest way I know to a hollow force is to give us structure without money. Simple as that. . . . 'Make it work' is not a satisfactory solution."
—Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz articulating his message to lawmakers on the Air Force's Fiscal 2013 budget proposal during a speech at the Stimson Center in Washington, D.C., May 1, 2012. The Air Force leadership has proposed reducing force structure and personnel next fiscal year in order to maintain a ready and capable force as the service absorbs significant spending cuts.