WASHINGTON — Lockheed Martin on Monday morning resumed conducting acceptance flights of newly constructed F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, almost three months after an engine downside grounded new jets and halted deliveries.
Lockheed introduced Monday that the primary flight took off from Fort Value, Texas, the place it builds nearly all of F-35 fighters.
“We resumed F-35 manufacturing flight operations in the present day following an F135 engine mitigation motion,” Lockheed Martin mentioned in its assertion.
Lockheed stopped acceptance flights after a Dec. 15 mishaps involving an F-35B fighter that was present process a top quality test flight. A video confirmed the fighter bouncing on the bottom, tipping ahead and spinning earlier than the pilot was safely ejected.
The investigation that ensued discovered indicators of an issue with the fighter’s Pratt & Whitney-made F135 engine, and engine deliveries had been halted in late December. Additional investigation discovered the engine had vibration points.
Pratt & Whitney in addition to engineers from the Pentagon and Lockheed developed an answer to repair the vibration concern within the engine, the F-35 Joint Program Workplace introduced in February. That answer takes about 4 to eight hours to put in within the engines of the F-35s.
Pratt & Whitney, which is owned by Raytheon Applied sciences, and the JPO mentioned in February that the vibration downside was uncommon.
However the workplace issued an order March 1 that mentioned all F-35s ought to have this vibration repair put in inside 90 days as a result of the answer was “cheap [and] non-intrusive,” and would imply all F-35 engines have the identical configuration.
Acceptance flights are required earlier than the federal government can take supply of recent F-35s. The resumption of acceptance flights will even pave the best way for deliveries to renew, although Lockheed didn’t say when deliveries would possibly resume.
“Security stays our prime precedence,” Lockheed mentioned. “We are going to ship the plane as rapidly as doable after endeavor the a number of checks and check flights wanted.”
Stephen Losey is the air warfare reporter for Protection Information. He beforehand coated management and personnel points at Air Power Occasions, and the Pentagon, particular operations and air warfare at Navy.com. He has traveled to the Center East to cowl US Air Power operations.