Lockheed's F-35 Pentagon Review Seeks to Avoid 'Surprises'

SF Chronicle ^ | 11/18/2010 | Margot Slade, John Lear

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

U.S. Defense Department officials responsible for weapons purchases will review Lockheed Martin Corp.'s F-35 jet program next week to investigate delays in development, Geoff Morrell, a Pentagon spokesman, said today.

The review, scheduled for Nov. 22 and led by Ashton Carter, the Pentagon's top weapons buyer, comes as the F-35 program manager, Vice Admiral David Venlet, is conducting a so-called technical baseline assessment of the $382 billion Joint Strike Fighter, the third such study in less than year.

The assessment by Venlet is a "deeper dive so as to avoid future surprises about this program," Morrell said at a news conference today. Already the Pentagon has found that there is more software code "left to be written than what we thought," he said.

[Vroomfondel]

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[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

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