{"id":1680128,"date":"2022-10-09T07:22:54","date_gmt":"2022-10-09T11:22:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1680128"},"modified":"2022-10-09T07:25:53","modified_gmt":"2022-10-09T11:25:53","slug":"waiver-to-restart-f-35-deliveries-approved-by-pentagon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/waiver-to-restart-f-35-deliveries-approved-by-pentagon\/","title":{"rendered":"Waiver to Restart F-35 Deliveries Approved by Pentagon"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">16<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fwaiver-to-restart-f-35-deliveries-approved-by-pentagon%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1680128&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div id=\"attachment_222479\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\">\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-222479\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Two U.S. Air Force F-35A Lightning IIs, assigned to the 4th Fighter Squadron from Hill Air Force Base, Utah, fly over the base and the surrounding area on Feb 14, 2018. (US Air Force\/Andrew Lee)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>WASHINGTON \u2014 The Pentagon has approved a national security waiver that will allow<a href=\"https:\/\/breakingdefense.com\/tag\/lockheed-martin\/\"> Lockheed Martin<\/a> to resume F-35 deliveries, which have been on hold since August<a href=\"https:\/\/breakingdefense.com\/2022\/09\/f-35-deliveries-suspended-after-finding-chinese-alloys-in-magnets\/\"> due to concerns about Chinese alloys<\/a> found in a component.<\/p>\n<p>A copy of the waiver \u2014 signed by Bill LaPlante, the undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment \u2014 was sent to Capitol Hill today, two sources told Breaking Defense on background, confirming a report by <a href=\"https:\/\/subscriber.politicopro.com\/article\/2022\/10\/pentagon-to-resume-f-35-deliveries-after-chinese-materials-discovered-00060962\">Politico<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The Defense Department halted <a href=\"https:\/\/breakingdefense.com\/tag\/f-35\/\">F-35<\/a> deliveries on Aug. 31, after Honeywell \u2014 the maker of the\u00a0F-35\u2019s turbomachine, which helps provide the power needed to start the engine \u2014 disclosed that a supplier for the turbomachine\u2019s lube pumps had used magnets containing cobalt and samarium alloys from China.<\/p>\n<p>The waiver \u201cwill enable the acceptance of 126 F-35 aircraft containing non-compliant specialty materials,\u201d LaPlante wrote in a Oct. 7 letter sent to the congressional defense committees. \u201cThe waiver will apply to nine Lot 13 and 117 Lot 14 F-35 aircraft in production or awaiting delivery. The final Lot 14 aircraft is projected for delivery on Oct. 31, 2023.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The F-35 program office has assessed that the alloys do not pose a safety or security risk, and flight operations of already-delivered F-35s have been ongoing throughout the pause. LaPlante noted in his letter that previously delivered aircraft have \u201cover 500,000 flight hours with no failures attributed to the high performance magnets containing the specialty metal.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/breakingdefense.com\/2022\/09\/pentagon-acquisition-chief-hopeful-that-f-35-deliveries-can-resume-pretty-soon\/\"><strong>RELATED: Pentagon acquisition chief hopeful that F-35 deliveries can resume \u2018pretty soon\u2019\u00a0<\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Instead, the department\u2019s major concern has been whether this specific use of Chinese materials was a violation of the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulations Supplement (DFARS), the Pentagon\u2019s overarching set of rules for procurement.<\/p>\n<p>Lockheed and Honeywell have identified a new US-based supplier for the alloys, which will begin deliveries this month, Lockheed has previously stated. However, it will take time for the magnets made from the new alloys to work their way from the lube pump supplier to the finished F-35s rolling off Lockheed\u2019s production line, with the first F-35 with compliant magnets delivering in Lot 15, according to LaPlante\u2019s letter.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe department is assessing whether a waiver is necessary for already delivered and accepted aircraft,\u201d which number 841 jets, LaPlante wrote.<\/p>\n<p>Although the F-35 deliveries have been suspended for more than a month, production has kept going at Lockheed\u2019s mile-line facility in Fort Worth, Texas and among its suppliers, Greg Ulmer, head of Lockheed\u2019s aeronautics business, told Breaking Defense during a Sept. 19 interview at the Air and Space Forces conference.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe workflow within the F-35 system is unchanged all the way through flying and accepting the aircraft, we\u2019re just not delivering the aircraft,\u201d he said. \u201cSo if you were in Fort Worth today, you would see airplanes launching and recovering.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>By that point in time, Lockheed had submitted the documentation for a waiver, but had not completed an investigation into how the supplier made the mistake of sourcing Chinese material for the nation\u2019s most advanced stealth fighter.<\/p>\n<p>Lockheed\u2019s contract with the US government stipulates DFARS requirements that are passed from Lockheed to its second-tier suppliers, then from those subcontractors to third-tier suppliers, and so forth for the 1,900 companies within the F-35\u2019s supply chain, Ulmer said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe get what we call a \u2018certificate of conformance\u2019 back to us from those suppliers. \u2026 We do due diligence relative to looking at those certificates of compliance and validating whether or not they\u2019re true,\u201d he said. The company is trying to understand \u201cwhere did that process break down? \u2026 We\u2019re working with the government hand-in-hand to go do that assessment. And then we\u2019re taking that also to double down across the supply chain, relative to this specific DFARS requirement.\u201d<\/p>\n<aside class=\"recommended-mobile mobile-only\">\n<h3 class=\"recommended-mobile__heading\">\nRecommended\t<\/h3>\n<\/aside>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Two U.S. Air Force F-35A Lightning IIs, assigned to the 4th Fighter Squadron from Hill Air Force Base, Utah, fly over the base and the surrounding area on Feb 14,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1680130,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1680128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1680128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1680128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1680128\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1680130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1680128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1680128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1680128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}