IV 

118TH CONGRESS 

2D SESSION H. RES. 1549 

Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives on contract breaches 

and other failures under the F–35 aircraft program. 

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

OCTOBER 22, 2024 

Mr. GAETZ (for himself and Mr. MOULTON) submitted the following 

resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Armed Services 

RESOLUTION 

Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives on 

contract breaches and other failures under the F–35 

aircraft program. 

Whereas the Department of Defense started the F–35 program in 2001 to develop a fifth-generation fighter aircraft intended to replace a range of aging aircraft in the 

United States military services’ inventories; 

Whereas the F–35 Lightning II aircraft is the Department 

of Defense’s most expensive weapon system, with the Department estimating the F–35 program will cost over 

$2,000,000,000,000 to buy, operate, and sustain over its 

lifetime; 

Whereas the F–35 program is more than a decade delayed 

and has cost $209,000,000,000 more than originally 

planned; 


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Whereas the F–35 program resulted in a Nunn-McCurdy 

breach in March 2010 after the unit cost of each aircraft 

grew by more than 50 percent over the original program 

baseline; 

Whereas the F–35 program has revised its baseline schedule 

four times since 2012 due to delays in development; 

Whereas the Department of Defense currently estimates the 

Air Force will pay $6,600,000 annually to operate and 

sustain each individual aircraft, which is well above the 

$4,100,000 original target, and the Air Force increased 

the amount of money it can afford to spend per F–35 

aircraft to $6,800,000 per year; 

Whereas despite increasing projected costs, no F–35 variant 

met its performance goals from fiscal years 2019 through 

2023 for mission capable rates, the percentage of time 

the aircraft can perform one of its tasked missions, or for 

full mission capable rates, the percentage of time during 

which the aircraft can perform all tasked missions; 

Whereas the monthly average readiness rates for the United 

States F–35 fleet is 53.1 percent mission capable and 

only 29.3 percent full mission capable, far below the Department of Defense target of 90 percent mission capability for the F–35A and 85 percent for the F–35B and 

C; 

Whereas the Department of Defense has consistently failed to 

invest in adequate depot capacity, which contributes up 

to a 10-percent reduction in the F–35’s mission capable 

rate; 

Whereas the Department of Defense sends 73 percent of all 

F–35 aircraft parts back to industry sources for repairs 


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due to lack of depot capacity, despite depot repairs being 

twice as fast; 

Whereas the F–35 Joint Program Office reported in 2023 

that the F–35 fleet would fly 300,524 hours per year, 

which is a reduction of almost 82,000 flight hours per 

year or 21 percent from its 2020 Annual Cost Estimate 

because it is too costly for the services to operate; 

Whereas Pratt & Whitney, subcontracted to produce the engine for the aircraft, did not deliver any engines on time 

in 2023, with an average delay of more than 2 months, 

and delivered 97 percent of the engines late in 2022 and 

96 percent of the engines late in 2021; 

Whereas the F–35 engine needs to be overhauled more often 

than originally anticipated, from approximately every 

2,000 flight hours to every 1,600 flight hours, because 

the current system does not have enough power or cooling capabilities to support both current and future capabilities; 

Whereas Lockheed Martin, the prime aircraft contractor, delivered 91 percent of aircraft late in 2023 and 50 percent 

of aircraft late in 2022; 

Whereas Lockheed Martin is not meeting its goals for the 

number of hours its workforce spends on scrap, rework, 

and repair, which occur when production defects result in 

additional work to fix the defect; 

Whereas hardware and software delays associated with the 

Technology Refresh 3 (TR–3) upgrades resulted in the 

Department of Defense refusing to accept delivery of aircraft from July 2023 through July 2024, until Lockheed 

Martin was able to deliver a minimally acceptable TR– 

3 configured aircraft; 


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Whereas, despite the year-long delay, the TR–3 configured 

aircraft are not combat capable and can only conduct 

training missions until Lockheed Martin delivers the full 

TR–3 capability, which is currently estimated to take 12 

to 16 months; 

Whereas the TR–3 delays have also subsequently delayed the 

Block 4 modernization effort for the F–35 aircraft, which 

is necessary to address new threats that have emerged 

since the Department of Defense established the aircraft’s original requirements in 2000; and 

Whereas, in February 2021, General CQ Brown acknowledged the serious issues with the F–35 program and said 

the Air Force needed to explore new and more cost-effective measures by ‘‘not ruling out starting from scratch. 

I want to be able to build something new and different, 

that’s not the F–16’’: Now, therefore, be it 

1 Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Rep2 resentatives that— 

3 (1) Lockheed Martin and its subcontractors’ in4 ability to deliver F–35 aircraft with modernized ca5 pabilities on time and within projected costs have de6 graded our military’s capabilities and raised the 

7 risks for our warfighters; 

8 (2) Lockheed Martin and its subcontractors are 

9 in breach of contract with respect to the deliverables 

10 on the F–35 aircraft contract; and 

11 (3) the Department of Defense has failed to 

12 adequately hold itself and Lockheed Martin accountVerDate Sep 11 2014 21:16 Oct 22, 2024 Jkt 059200 PO 00000 Frm 00004 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\HR1549.IH HR1549

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1 able for the numerous failures within the F–35 air2 craft program. 

Æ 


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