The U.S. DOD DOT&E office 2014 test report for the F-35 has been made available via various channels. A link to the PDF file is here.
What you will find is that the engine fire from last year has stopped a lot of testing from happening. Reason; that engine mishap imposed flight envelop restrictions. Most of the testing requires a fleet of healthy aircraft.
There are still a lot of problems with the F-35.
Live-fire testing confirmed (again) that it is a fire-bug. Most combat damage will set it alight.
Of course, software. Complexity of the software, and its management are still massive problems.
Also it isn't just engine and software problems that are causing flight restrictions. Fuel inerting, rudder problems, aircraft weight, navigation system issues, to name a few.
It has now been over 13 years since Lockheed Martin has won the Joint Strike Fighter contract and there are no credible, Joint Operational Requirement Document (JORD), key performance perimeters to look at.
Reliability of the aircraft? In 2014, a tire blow-out during a cross-wind landing (hey, stuff happens), took.... two weeks to repair.
As you read through the report, note that this aircraft, even if it was to someday work to design specification, is likely to get shot down vs. emerging and many existing threats.
Lately, the Secretary of the U.S. Navy stated (again) his commitment to the program. The Navy is so committed to the program... that Defense contractors are looking at ways to put the APG-79 AESA radar...on legacy F-18s...that only have a few thousand flight hours left.
While the top leaders of the U.S. Navy and USAF sing platitude about the F-35, internally there are voices that see the waterfall coming up.
Fast.
H/T- WW
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-Time's Battleland - 5 Part series on F-35 procurement - 2013
-Summary of Air Power Australia F-35 points
-Bill Sweetman, Aviation Week and the F-35
-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
-F-35's air-to-air ability limited
-F-35 Blocks--2006 and today
-The F-35B design is leaking fuel
-F-35 deliveries
-ADF's wacky F-35 assumptions
-Gauging performance, the 2008 F-35, Davis dream brief
-Aboriginal brought out as a prop
-Super Kendall's F-35 problem
-LM sales force in pre-Internet era
-History of F-35 engine problems
-Compare
-JSF hopes and dreams...early days of the Ponzi Scheme
-The Prognostics
-2002--Australia joins the F-35 program
-Congressional Research Service--Through to FY2013, F-35 has received $83.3B in funding
-F-35 choice gives Dutch a shocking high cost per flight hour
-More indications that the F-35 is a failed program
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