Frank Kendall
By Army Sgt. 1st Class Tyrone C. Marshall Jr.
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, March 20, 2012 - The F-35 Lightning II joint strike fighter program -- the centerpiece of future tactical aviation and a key to implementing new military strategic guidance -- made strong progress in its development last year, a defense official said today.

Frank Kendall, acting undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, told the House Armed Services Committee that the fighter aircraft is essential to the Defense Department, and that it made "strong progress" in 2011.

"Last fall, the department engaged in a strategy and budget review, where everything -- and I do mean everything -- was on the table," Kendall said. "After a careful look at the joint strike fighter program, the department determined that we do need the JSF [and] that we need all three variants of the fighter, and that we need the planned inventory of 2,443 jets."

That said, Kendall added, "you must recognize there is still a long way to go for JSF." The F-35 flight test program is only about 20 percent complete and "many of the more challenging elements of flight test are still ahead of us," he said.

Kendall noted the F-35 development has reached a crucial point in the conversion from being conceptualized to actual production.

"The JSF program is undergoing the critical transition from development to production," he said. "Historically, this is always a difficult phase for any program, but particularly so for a high-performance aircraft."

That transition has been even more difficult for the F-35, Kendall said, because the program began production very early, well before flight testing had begun.

That decision for early production resulted in an unprecedented level of concurrency, which drove ...