Senators proposed an amendment to the Senate’s version of the 2025 defense authorization bill to increase the number of F-35 developmental test aircraft for future upgrades from six to nine.
The amendment would also push back the required fielding of the aircraft from 2030 to 2034.
The planned amendment, by Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Ranking Member Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), would revise Section 225(b) of last year’s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) on the F-35 Continuous Capability Development and Delivery (C2D2) program.
That section says that six developmental F-35s would field by 2030 under a Lot 19 buy or later and that the F-35 program executive officer would designate two U.S. Air Force F-35As, two Marine Corps’ F-35Bs, and two Navy F-35Cs for developmental testing.
Begun in 2018, C2D2 for the Lockheed Martin F-35 envisions software updates for the fighter every six months and has included the development of Block 4, Technology Refresh-3 to permit the Block 4 advancements and making F-35s capable of carrying conventional and nuclear ordnance, specifically external carriage of a pair of B61-12 gravity bombs. The latest variant of the bomb, the oldest deployed nuclear weapon in the U.S. arsenal, was designed at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Cost estimates for C2D2, which the F-35 program is to pursue through fiscal 2025, have varied from $7 billion to more than $10 billion. DoD requested $1.1 billion for C2D2 in fiscal 2025.
A version of this story was first published by Exchange Monitor affiliate Defense Daily.
