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 pro-
gram in 2001 to develop a fifth-generation fighter air-
craft 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 De-
partment 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 De-
partment of Defense target of 90 percent mission capa-
bility 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 en-
gine 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 cool-
ing capabilities to support both current and future capa-
bilities; 
Whereas Lockheed Martin, the prime aircraft contractor, de-
livered 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 air-
craft 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 air-
craft’s original requirements in 2000; and 
Whereas, in February 2021, General CQ Brown acknowl-
edged the serious issues with the F–35 program and said 
the Air Force needed to explore new and more cost-effec-
tive 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 
Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Rep-
resentatives that— 
(1) Lockheed Martin and its subcontractors’ in-
ability to deliver F–35 aircraft with modernized ca-
pabilities on time and within projected costs have de-
graded our military’s capabilities and raised the 
risks for our warfighters; 
(2) Lockheed Martin and its subcontractors are 
in breach of contract with respect to the deliverables 
on the F–35 aircraft contract; and 
(3) the Department of Defense has failed to 
adequately hold itself and Lockheed Martin account-
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able for the numerous failures within the F–35 air-
craft program. 
Æ 
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