© SeongJoon Cho/BloombergA U.S. Marine Corps. F-35B Lightning II fighter jet performs a maneuver at the Singapore Airshow on Feb. 9.
That's down from 111 "Category 1" safety-of-flight and mission-impeding deficiencies in January 2018, according to Defense Department data compiled by the Government Accountability Office.
The improvements may be critical to reassuring lawmakers and U.S. allies buying the F-35 that the costliest U.S. weapons system is worth its price tag, especially as pressure builds to reduce government spending after the response to the Covid-19 pandemic escalates budget deficits. The aircraft is already being operated by forces in the U.S., U.K., Israel, Japan, South Korea and Australia.
The Defense Department's F-35 program office has "done a good job at working" with the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps "to really prioritize what needs to get fixed versus what would be just a helpful thing to the pilot -- getting to the actual things they need to get at," Jon Ludwigson, the GAO's top F-35 analyst, said in an interview. He said "they have procedures in place to work around" the remaining flaws.
The last "Category 1A" deficiency that could endanger pilots was deemed corrected in mid-November. Now, Lockheed and the Pentagon are resolving eight remaining "Category 1B" deficiencies that pose a "critical impact on mission readiness." Five of those are expected to be completed and verified by December, the program office said.
Comment: Still a modern marvel of incompetently built machinery.