F-35 Too Buggy To Fly

F-35 Too Buggy To Fly

This post is also available in: heעברית (Hebrew)

The F-35 fighter jet’s software is so buggy, it could just ground the whole fleet, Vice’s Motherboard reports

The F-35’s logistics system is supposed to be “the brains and blood of operating this weapons system,” said last summer Lt Gen Christopher Bogdan, the F-35 programme manager. But the jet’s Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS) is so buggy that US government auditors fear that the software could be beyond saving, and will not be deployed.

Now, Bogdan is saying that the logistics system is not critical after all, and that the aircraft can fly without it for more than 30 days.

The maybe-critical ALIS is a ground-based system designed to diagnose mechanical problems, guide maintenance crews, and track and order replacement parts. It’s supposed to allow pilots to plan missions and review performance. And now, it might not get to do these things at all.

Maintenance crews had to resort to laborious workarounds to deal with the software’s bugginess, for example burning data on CDs, driving off-base, and sending it through a civilian WiFi network. This situation is unworkable, and unfortunately, the F-35 is absolutely dependent on ALIS and other computer technology.

ALIS is now years behind schedule, and could cost up to billions more than budgeted. The US Department of Defence estimated spending on ALIS to top out at $16.7bn over the life of the F-35 programme, but a new report from the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) says that “functionality problems with ALIS could lead to $20–100 billion in additional costs.” The problems, according to the report, could ground the whole fleet.