The U.S. Air Pressure 461st Flight Take a look at Squadron primarily based at Edwards Air Pressure Base has acquired a singular specifically instrumented F-35A fighter designed to reinforce the a lot delayed testing of latest software program. The brand new plane is anticipated to assist speed up efforts to deliver the F-35’s software program absolutely as much as the Expertise Refresh 3 (TR-3) customary, which is crucial to maintaining with the newest advances in Chinese language fifth technology fighter applications, and ultimately facilitating bringing the F-35 as much as the Block 4 functionality customary within the early-mid 2030. The TR-3 customary was beforehand anticipated to be reached across the early 2020, and the Block 4 customary round 2025. In February 2025 the Pentagon’s Director of Operational Take a look at and Analysis reported that operational testing of TR-3 software program on the F-35 was unlikely to begin earlier than 2026, with additional delays remaining doable. Delays have worsened regardless of a big watering down of the necessities to deliver the plane to the Block 4 customary.
The difficulty of delays has been critical sufficient that in July 2023 the Joint Program Workplace positioned F-35 procurements on maintain, with the Pentagon refusing to approve deliveries particularly as a result of TR-3 software program had not been absolutely examined. The fallout for the U.S. Air Pressure, which was already years not on time in bringing the F-35 into service, was significantly critical. Commenting on the significance of the brand new to accelerating growth world, the director of the F-35 Built-in Take a look at Pressure Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Prudhomme noticed: “Because the world’s solely F-35A able to evaluating each mission techniques and flight sciences, this new asset is vital for quickly fielding superior capabilities to the warfighter.” “This new plane arrives at an important time, supporting intensive testing of TR-3 software program upgrades and next-generation weapons integration,” he added. Whereas it stays unsure whether or not the commissioning of a brand new testbed plane into service will make a big contribution to addressing the very critical points affecting this system, the likelihood that it does and the extent of the excellent points makes testbed plane critically essential to this system.
