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The Navy mentioned it “misplaced confidence” within the colonel overseeing restore work on the costliest navy venture in historical past
The US Navy has fired the commanding officer of Fleet Readiness Middle East in North Carolina as a result of a “lack of confidence in his potential to command.” The ability is liable for overhauling the Navy’s variant of the next-generation F-35 fighter jet – which, though it’s already the costliest navy venture in historical past, has been plagued with flaws and requires upgrades to see out its lifespan.
Marine Corps Col. Thomas Atkinson was relieved on Friday and changed by Capt. James Belmont, who was initially slated to imagine command in Might, an announcement from the Navy reads. No additional particulars got to clarify Atkinson’s firing.
Fleet Readiness Middle East has a workforce of greater than 4,000 sailors, Marines, and civilians, and is one in every of six amenities the place Navy and Marine Corps plane are serviced and upgraded.
Nevertheless, it’s the solely facility within the US licensed to hold out essential airframe strengthening work on the F-35B, a variant of the F-35 fighter jet utilized by the Navy and Marine Corps. By mid-2021, the North Carolina facility had taken in 100 of those jets for modification, and after 15,000 hours of labor, the primary of those jets subjected to “laser shock peening” to strengthen its airframe was licensed for service in January.
Whereas the navy mentioned that this process – which provides rigidity with out including additional weight – would “lengthen the life expectancy” of the jet, the American Society of Metals mentioned it was mandatory to make sure that “the plane attain its full life restrict.” The Pentagon initially put the F-35’s lifespan at round 4 a long time, however later revised that estimate all the way down to 10 years for a number of the F-35’s earliest variants.
A Pentagon assessment at first of 2020 discovered greater than 800 software program flaws with the F-35, and defects that rendered its gun unusable. Although “most” of those points have been fastened by that summer time, plenty of points that would “injure or kill pilots or in any other case jeopardize the airplane’s safety” remained. At a present lifetime price of round $1.7 trillion, it’s the costliest navy venture ever undertaken, and even with the jet coming into service, it already requires expensive modernization upgrades.
It’s unclear whether or not Atkinson’s elimination is linked to Fleet Readiness Middle East’s work on the F-35.
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