U.S. Air Force and Lockheed Martin has precautionarily suspended flight operations of 15 newly delivered F-35A stealth fighters followin...
U.S. Air Force and Lockheed Martin has precautionarily suspended flight operations of 15 newly delivered F-35A stealth fighters following a manufacturing quality issue.
The grounding was enacted after a non-conforming insulation was found on coolant tubing carrying Poly-Alpha-Olefin (PAO) throughout the jet’s wings.
The flammable PAO is used for avionics cooling and poor insulation can increase vulnerability of the fifth generation fighter.
The issue was discovered during depot maintenance on one of the impacted jets where loose insulation was discovered. The issue is confined to one supplier source and one batch of parts.
In total, 57 F-35As are affected; 42 are in production and 15 have been delivered to the U.S. Air Force and Norway.
Being an supply chain manufacturing quality issue, depot-level maintenance will be enough to address the issue of the 15 aircraft, while the 42 aircraft in assembly will be addressed prior to their delivery.
