A DMO team is in Fort Worth, Texas carrying out a risk assessment of Australia’s Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program.
Keith Notts, Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Business Development Manager for Australia and Canada, told ADM the DMO team would be spending a week carrying out what he described as a scheduled risk assessment.
Informed sources said the Australian team had received material from the US Government’s JSF Technical Baseline Review which is currently underway, and would be interviewing a range of Lockheed Martin F-35 program executives so as to provide an independent assessment to government of JSF cost and capability and Lockheed Martin’s ability to adhere to the current delivery schedule.
The Commonwealth has approved an order for the first 14 aircraft of what is anticipated to eventually be a 100-strong fleet. The first two aircraft are due for delivery in 2014, the next four in 2016, and eight in 2017.
Defence Minister Stephen Smith said in July that the government was not prepared to accept any gap in Australia’s air combat capability and he had ordered an independent review of the JSF program. A judgment would be made in 2012 “in relation to air combat capability arrangements,” he said.
Smith said separately that the obvious response to any air combat gap was to order F/A-18F Super Hornets additional to the 24 Super Hornets now delivered to the RAAF, but no decision had been taken on this. - Julian Kerr Ft Worth