The US Department of Defense has “temporarily” stopped taking delivery of Lockheed Martin’s F-35 fighter jets after discovering that an alloy used in a key engine component is made in China.
In a press release Wednesday, the company indicated that the component in question is a magnet in the jet’s Honeywell-made turbomachine. The magnet is said to have been made using cobalt and a samarium alloy coming from China, and to have been magnetized in the USA.
The turbomachine is a crucial aircraft component responsible for integrating the plane’s auxiliary power unit with an air cycle machine to provide electrical power for things like engine startup and ground maintenance.
“We are working with our partners and [the] DoD to ensure contractual compliance within the supply chain,” Lockheed assured.
A DoD spokesperson confirmed to Bloomberg that the Pentagon had “temporarily paused the acceptance of new F-35 aircraft to ensure the F-35 program’s compliance” with regulations “pertaining to specialty metals.”
The spokesperson assured that the pause in production won’t affect the operations of F-35s already delivered to the US military or foreign countries because “the magnet does not transmit information or harm the integrity of the aircraft,” and because “there are no performance, quality, safety or security risks associated with this issue.”
An alternative alloy supplier has already been found, according to the Pentagon.
In its release, Lockheed emphasized that it is “working with the DoD to resolve the issue as quickly as possible to resume deliveries.”
Honeywell informed Lockheed of the problem in late August.
Lockheed sources the F-35’s 300,000 individual components from over 1,700 suppliers.
The US defense giant’s multirole fifth generation fighter jet has faced a seemingly endless stream of problems owing to its complexity, incredible cost, and the ‘one size fits all’ demands placed on designers by the Pentagon.
Despite spending 20 years in development and its total expected lifetime cost of $1.7 trillion, the F-35 (whose full name is the F-35 Lightning II) has been plagued with a broad range of issues ranging from faulty ejector seats to processor troubles, engine power and thermal management problems, rust, and vulnerability to lightning.