Congress should keep its eye on cost overruns for the upgrade that will make the F-35A fighter aircraft nuclear-capable this decade by allowing the Government Accountability Office to keep investigating the program for a few more years, the congressional investigator said this week.
Block 4 upgrades will eventually allow Lockheed Martin’s Joint Strike Fighter to carry nuclear weapons, starting with internal carriage of a pair of B61-12 nuclear gravity bombs provided by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), and which will use guided tail kits built by Boeing to give the weapon what the Air Force has called “modest standoff capability.”
Last year, the Pentgon said the F-35A would achieve its initial nuclear certification around 2023. The Air Force’s 2021 budget request shows dual capable costs stretching nearly until the end of the Block 4 program, which last year slipped two years into 2026. F35-A will be a dual-capable aircraft capable of carrying conventional and nuclear munitions.
The Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) chief concern in its Tuesday report on the F-35 was how the Pentagon would account for increased costs related to the replacement of Turkish-made components slated for use on the aircraft. Those components were banned after the U.S. last year prohibited NATO ally Turkey from purchasing the F-35 after the country acquired Russian missile defense systems.
However, the GAO did recommend that the Pentagon “consider the results of its future technology readiness assessment of all Block 4 technologies and incorporate the cost and schedule risks of developing those technologies in the next update to its Block 4 cost estimate to ensure that the estimate meets the comprehensive leading practices.”
The Pentagon expects to pay around $410 million through fiscal 2025 to make F-35A dual capable, according to the Air Force’s latest budget request, including more than $70 million in the current 2020 budget year. For 2021, the peak spending year, the service seeks an increase to more than $105 million. These include unspecified physical and software modifications to the aircraft, which will require testing, according to the budget request.
That is a tiny fraction of the overall cost for Block 4 development, which includes incremental software modifications and clocks in at at least $12 billion, according to the GAO report. That includes a $1.5 billion increase recognized in 2019, when the Block 4 schedule got pushed out.
As things stand, GAO reports on the Block 4 upgrades “are slated to end in 2023,” Congress’ investigative arm stated in its latest periodic report on the effort. “Without continued Block 4 reporting through the development phase [which ends in 2026], Congress will lack important oversight information.”
