A declassified Pentagon study of the F-35 details the reliability and safety problems of America’s most expensive weapon.

A declassified comprehensive Pentagon report on testing of Lockheed Martin Corp.’s F-35 warplane, America’s most expensive weapons system, shows that six years of combat testing were marred by reliability and maintenance delays, guns that don’t fire accurately and unresolved problems. about cyber defense capabilities.

“The overall reliability, maintainability and availability of the U.S. fleet remains below expectations,” the director of operational test and evaluation said in an edited version of the February report, which was obtained by the Washington-based Project on Government Oversight through Freedom. Information Law.

The organization plans to release it on Thursday.

According to Greg Williams, director of the POGO Center for Defense Information, the report reveals enough troubling elements that the incoming Trump administration will likely want to completely review the contents of the unredacted report on readiness, maintenance and logistics problems.

“The Trump administration must remember that we have been flying the F-35 for 18 years, and we still cannot maintain it, keep its stealth intact, or shoot it accurately,” Williams said in a statement.

The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, which was seen as a possible project for the new administration although Trump himself disavowed it, would increase the Air Force’s annual purchases of the F-35A variant to 60-80, up from the planned 48.

“There have been instances where a scheduled aircraft was not available because necessary repairs had not been completed or because spare parts were unavailable,” the test bureau said. In other cases, planes experienced malfunctions after takeoff before scheduled tests began, the report said.

Overall, “fewer aircraft were deployed and fewer sorties were flown than planned,” due to deficiencies in maintenance and reliability that affected the aircraft’s suitability, it said.

Despite the problems, the Pentagon in March allowed the program to continue at “full production,” a key statement of confidence but a largely symbolic move since Lockheed was already assembling planes at that rate.

The decision comes about a month after the 382-page report was completely classified, including an introductory letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. The Department of Defense estimates the program will cost more than $1.8 trillion over its life cycle, including development, production and sustainment.

The Pentagon’s F-35 program office said in a statement that “we have combat-capable aircraft today, and they perform exceptionally well against the threats for which they were designed. The pilots constantly emphasize that this is the fighter they will want to take to war if necessary.”

“The impact on test fleet availability experienced during operational testing was not new or unknown,” the office added, saying it “continues to work to improve” reliability and availability.

Lockheed Martin said in a statement that the F-35 “consistently meets or exceeds the reliability requirements for which we are contracted” as “nearly 90% of F-35 components perform better than required.”

“We are investing more than $350 million in our engineering systems integration testing capabilities to build program capability and effectiveness for earlier learning,” the company said.

Issues identified in the report include:

• The aircraft’s automatic troubleshooting system was sending false alarms at a rate of once per hour, when it should be once every 50 hours.

• F-35 repairs “take at least twice as long as required” compared to formal requirements, in part because “low failure rates of critical parts contributed significantly to low availability” for missions, and “critical failures are relatively evenly distributed” distributed among many different components.”

• Airplanes often flew test flights with their low-observable outer skin, technically known as “low-observable,” in need of repair. “Maintenance, such as restoring stealth systems, was often delayed to allow aircraft to continue flying,” the report said. No Air Force or Navy model has flown missions in complete stealth.

• The 25mm cannon mounted on the Air Force’s F-35 variant failed to hit targets “due to design and installation problems” despite years of efforts to correct the situation.

• Details about the F-35’s ability to withstand cyberattacks on its 24 most sensitive systems were redacted, although the unedited portion said “knowledge of the aircraft’s actual vulnerabilities is limited” and called on the program office to provide an aircraft “that allows full, end-to-end testing in a representative cyber threat environment.”

• The F-35 is designed to take on the world’s most advanced “5th generation” fighters, such as those in China’s inventory, but “only one test involved a 5th generation enemy aircraft.”

• Air Force and Marine Corps jets required excessive “logistics support” of support equipment and spare parts for deployment overseas to land bases or amphibious ships.

Regarding cyber threats, the program office said they are “dynamic and therefore require flexible and defense in depth” and that it maintains one of the most robust cybersecurity testing programs in the Department of Defense.

Lockheed said that “we have also invested heavily in countering cybersecurity threats and remain confident in the integrity of our trusted, multi-layered information systems.”

Early in his first term, Trump criticized the program for its “massive costs and cost overruns” and publicly speculated whether rival Boeing Co. produce a comparable version of its F/A-18 Super Hornet. Then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis ordered a comparative study of the costs of the two aircraft, but it was never published.

So far, the US has awarded contracts for at least 881 of the expected 2,456 aircraft. More than 1,000 fighters have been delivered to customers in the United States and abroad out of an expected 3,000.