F-35 Replan Adds Time, Resources For Testing
Details of the revamped F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program are emerging and showing that, despite more than nine years of work, almost six years of challenging development and testing still lie ahead for the Lockheed Martin-led project.
Both flight testing and software development have been replanned using industry-standard productivity rates rather than the aggressive—and unachievable—assumptions on which the original program was built. This means many more sorties to refly flight-sciences test points and for regression testing of mission-system software changes.
The replan adds 2,000 flights to the program—for a total of 7,800, just 600 of which have been completed—and extends development testing to October 2016. In addition to more refly and regression flights, the new plan adds sorties for test-pilot training and builds in a 500-flight margin for unexpected flight-sciences and mission-system issues.
For the mission system, the replan means more software development engineers, more integration laboratory capacity—and more time. The final software standard, Block 3C, is scheduled to be released to flight test in June 2015. Of the 8 million lines of code on the aircraft, “we have 4 million to do, but we still have four years of development,” says Eric Branyan, deputy general manager of the F-35 program.
Software development has undergone a significant change with the decision to “sunset” the Block 0.5 standard originally planned to be released for training. Numerous issues with the software led to the decision to move early to the Block 1 standard, which includes new processing hardware, says Branyan.
In F-35 parlance, Block 0.5 provides basic “aviate and navigate” capabilities, Block 1 introduces onboard sensor fusion, Block 2 integrates weapons and data links, and Block 3 provides the full capability planned for development.
Block 1 hardware began flight tests on mission-system development aircraft in April 2010, and is now the baseline through low-rate initial production (LRIP) Lot 4. While LRIP 1 and 2 aircraft will still be delivered with Block 0.5 functionality to begin training, this is now part of Block 1A running on the new hardware.
Regression testing of the Block 0.5 capabilities in Block 1A was completed in December, including collection of the first synthetic-aperture radar maps. Branyan says the Block 0.5 issues have been cured and the software is “solid.” As a next step, LRIP 1 aircraft AF-6 and -7 will test the maturity and suitability for training of the initial functionality.
AF-6 and -7 have been instrumented and will be delivered to the Air Force Test Pilots School at Edwards AFB, Calif., in March/April for independent testing of the initial mission-system and flight-envelope capabilities. This testing is intended to clear the LRIP 2 aircraft, beginning with AF-8, for delivery to Eglin AFB, Fla., where training is now expected to begin in September.
Flight testing of the additional capabilities in Block 1A is under way on development aircraft BF-4 at NAS Patuxent River, Md., and AF-3 at Edwards. Block 1B, which adds the multi-level security required for multinational operations, is planned to be loaded in June and released to production aircraft at the end of the year. Block 1B requires one hardware change, says Branyan: adding a crypto module for data security.
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