While the Air Force will originally focus on a competition to place new ejection seats in the service's F-16 fleet, “decisions following the competition could extend to other platforms, including the F-22 and B-1," the Air Force said.
The Air Force is nearing a decision on whether to recompete an ejection seat contract held by Collins. If the service changes course, it will send shockwaves through the duopoly that fights over every potential ejection seat sale.
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Fear over a defective part led to grounding and inspection of hundreds of planes. After all that, only four problems were actually discovered. Was shutting down flight operations worth it?
The F-35 fleet was stood down on July 29th due to concerns related to the ejection seat propulsion system.
Earlier on Friday the Air Force announced that the majority of its F-35A jets were grounded to check on the ejection seat issue.
The stand-down follows the Navy grounding an undisclosed number of jets due to concerns with ejection seat safety.
On today’s battlefield, mobility isn’t optional - it’s mission-critical.
PENTAGON: The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter possesses a remarkable array of sensors and processors to let it find the enemy and help the pilot kill or evade him. But the crucial threat library — known as Mission Data Files — just isn’t being developed and updated quickly enough, Brig. Gen. Scott Pleus, head of the F-35 […]