F-35 Program Criticized for Over-Promising and Under-Delivering, GAO Finds

The F-35 program continues to face criticism due to its over-promising and under-delivering. The Government Accountability Office found that the program's use of incentive fees has been ineffective in holding contractors accountable for on-time delivery. The program office compensated Lockheed Martin with hundreds of millions of dollars of performance incentive fees despite the aircraft being delivered up to 60 days late. The TR-3 software upgrade program is running three years behind schedule and has incurred $1.14 billion in extra costs, pushing the overall development cost to $1.9 billion. The Pentagon is seeking to cut its reliance on the F-35, with the proposed budget requesting 47 F-35s, down from a planned 74.