Pentagon holds back $231M from Lockheed over F-35 safety fixes and other design defects

Bloomberg reports:

Pentagon Holds Back $231 Million for Lockheed F-35 Fixes

The Pentagon is withholding as much as $231 million from Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT) until it completes modifications to F-35 aircraft already delivered, including improved protection against lightning strikes.

The money is being held back until Lockheed, the largest U.S. contractor, corrects “major variances” in at least five areas in which changes were deemed necessary after the fighters were handed over to the military, according to theDefense Contract Management Agency.

The agency said the major fixes include modifying an on-board safety system that’s intended to prevent explosions after a fuel tank is hit by a bullet or fragment and to minimize fires caused by lightning strikes.

Other fixes include modifying electrical components to protect against lightning and electromagnetic interference and completing the redesign, testing and installation of the auxiliary air inlet door of the propulsion system on the Marine Corps version.

H/T- Mark Collins


---
-Time's Battleland - 5 Part series on F-35 procurement - 2013 
-Summary of Air Power Australia F-35 points
-Aviation Week (ARES blog) F-35 posts (2007 to present)
-U.S. Government Accounting Office (GAO) F-35 reports
-F-35 JSF: Cold War Anachronism Without a Mission
-History of F-35 Production Cuts
-Looking at the three Japan contenders (maneuverability)
-How the Canadian DND misleads the public about the F-35
-Value of STOVL F-35B over-hyped
-Cuckoo in the nest--U.S. DOD DOT&E F-35 report is out
-6 Feb 2012 Letter from SASC to DOD boss Panetta questioning the decision to lift probation on the F-35B STOVL.
-USAFs F-35 procurement plan is not believable
-December 2011 Australia/Canada Brief
-F-35 Key Performance Perimeters (KPP) and Feb 2012 CRS report
-F-35 DOD Select Acquisition Report (SAR) FY2012
-Release of F-35 2012 test report card shows continued waste on a dud program
-Australian Defence answers serious F-35 project concerns with "so what?"
-Land of the Lost (production cut history update March 2013)
-Outgoing LM F-35 program boss admits to flawed weight assumptions (March 2013)
-A look at the F-35 program's astro-turfing
-F-35 and F-16 cost per flying hour
-Is this aircraft worth over $51B of USMC tac-air funding?
-Combat radius and altitude, A model
-F-35A, noise abatement and airfields and the USAF
-Deceptive marketing practice: F-35 blocks
-The concurrency fraud
-The dung beetle's "it's known" lie