F-35 Deliveries

[Ron Cuskelly]

Does anyone have delivery dates for A35-061 to A35-072? Most of the earlier deliveries have been established from ADF imagery but it seems that the novelty of F-35 deliveries has worn off.

[Warhawk]

Hi Ron

Noted today www.australiandefender.com.au that "they'll be home by Xmas"

8 NOVEMBER 2024

CANBERRA: The Royal Australian Air Force's complete fleet of F-35A Lightning II Joint Strike Fighters will be delivered to RAAF Williamtown by Christmas according to the Chief of Air Force.

The remaining nine RAAF F-35A Lightning II airframes are currently either undergoing final RAAF pre acceptance inspections or have already been accepted and are in storage at a US Air Force facility in the United States ahead of their ferry flight to Australia 'before the end of the year', Chief of Air Force Air Marshall Stephen Chappell revealed during testimony before the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee on Wednesday November 6.

Four of the nine final RAAF F-35A Lightning IIs (A35-064, A35-065, A35-066 and A35-067) have already been accepted by the RAAF, bringing the RAAF fleet to 67 aircraft.

The nine final F-35A Lightning IIs, which were produced to the latest F-35 specification under F-35 Low Rate Initial Production Lot 15 (LRIP15), delivery had been delayed for more than a year due to the acceptance halt imposed by the US Department of Defence led Joint F-35 Program Office due to delays in the finalisation of a stable software package to support their new Technical Refresh 3 (TR3) configuration.

The Joint F-35 Program Office lifted the acceptance halt earlier this year, but the Australian F-35A's roll out had to await their turn within a large international back log of F-35 variants rumoured to be approaching 200 airframes.

The nine new F-35A Lightning IIs will be delivered in "Block IV Technical Refresh 3" configuration according to testimony given by Air Marshall Chappell.

The RAAF is awaiting its acceptance of the final, ninth, F-35A Lightning II before conducting the delivery of the aircraft to Australia under the 'Exercise Lightning Ferry' program, a significant undertaking involving RAAF and USAF tankers and multiple hops including Joint Base Pearl Harbor Hickam in Hawaii and Andersen Air Force Base in Guam.

Further,..once here, they'll be a return to Factory per upgrading the oldest to newest to same standard

The RAAF's 63 currently operational F-35As are in F-35 Block III Technical Refresh 2 (F+) configuration and will, according to testimony before the Senate Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Legislation Committee, be progressively rolled through a major upgrade program conducted by Lockheed Martin in the USA beginning next year, which will see the entire fleet brought up to Block IV Technical Refresh III configuration.

End of message

Gordy