Lockheed Martin is holding “very energetic” talks with the Pentagon about enhancing the F-35 to a ‘5+ technology’ commonplace by way of the combination of a number of applied sciences which have been developed for the F-47 sixth technology fighter program.The agency’s chief government Jim Taiclet commented: “There’s a really energetic engagement at an especially excessive degree with the Division of Protection, and I anticipate it’ll be taken to the White Home someday quickly, hopefully, to think about this sort of idea.” “We’ve gotten encouraging suggestions,” he added, noting: “There’s vital curiosity within the authorities about discussing plane modernisation writ giant, all the way in which as much as the administration degree, the White Home degree, and we’re in the course of that with them, and we’re getting heard. We’re listening to again, and it’s fairly energetic.” Taiclet beforehand said that such upgrades would offer the F-35 with “80 % of six-gen functionality at half the worth.”
The way forward for the F-35 program has appeared more and more unsure, with procurements by the U.S. Air Drive set to be minimize to only 24 fighters in Fiscal 12 months 2026 attributable to funds shortages and the necessity to prioritise funding for the event of the F-47 sixth technology fighter. A pointy contraction of the Air Drive’s general fighter fleet, very low availability charges within the F-35 fleet, and main overruns in procurement and notably in operational prices, have been among the many elements fuelling a consensus that very deep cuts to general procurement plans, probably by greater than 50 %, are seemingly. China’s unveiling of two new sixth technology fighters in December 2024 already at flight prototype phases straight precipitated a drop in Lockheed Martin’s inventory worth, and resulted within the Pentagon allocating a better precedence to the F-47 program, as prospects have been raised that the F-35 could be left successfully out of date for top depth fight with a prime tier adversary.
Potential delays to the F-47 program have the potential to supply a window for the F-35 to realize renewed consideration as a stopgap, notably if modernised to include lots of the similar applied sciences. The obvious postponement of the Navy’s F/A-XX sixth technology fighter program have additionally raised a major chance that the service will present an curiosity in investing extra within the F-35, together with procuring enhanced variants. Questions nonetheless stay relating to the defence sector’s means to implement such upgrades in a well timed method, with rather more conservative upgrades having prior to now constantly confronted super delays. Efforts to modernise the F-35 to the Block 4 commonplace, for instance, have seen efficiency necessities watered right down to minimise delays, though the date for bringing the F-35 as much as this commonplace has nonetheless been pushed again by a number of years into the early 2030s. As the one fighter of its technology in manufacturing within the Western world, the F-35’s significance for the US and its strategic companions is unprecedented for a single fighter class, with the capabilities it fields having super implications for the steadiness of energy throughout a number of theatres from the Center East and Japanese Europe to the Arctic and Pacific.
