Defense

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Air Force wants to make a digital twin of the F-16, hoping to cut down the time and money it takes to sustain its most prolific fighter. Over the next four years, the Air Force will pluck two F-16s from the boneyard, disassemble them, and use “digital engineering” to create an exact digital replica of the airframe and many of its major subsystems. The twin will allow…

WASHINGTON — Under current estimates, the U.S. Air Force will reach a tipping point where projected F-35 sustainment costs become too expensive, forcing the service to either cut its planned buy of the Lockheed Martin-made jet or drastically reduce flying hours, the Government Accountability Office found in a new report. As the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps’ F-35 operations reach their…

WASHINGTON ― House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith on Tuesday criticized Lockheed Martin and other contractors over the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and its exorbitant lifecycle costs. “There’s no question that everyone involved ― certainly Lockheed Martin ― could be doing a better job on getting sustainment costs down,” Smith, D-Wash., told the Defense Writer’s Group.

LONDON — The high costs of supporting F-35s and a failure to quickly integrate the MBDA Meteor missile to the aircraft could slow British plans to buy more of the jets, defence secretary Ben Wallace warned June 23. Wallace told Britain’s Parliamentary defence select committee that he had the budget to buy more than the 48 jets the military has already ordered, but wanted to see progress…