From the Magazine: F-35 Upgrade – do you want the good news, or the bad news?

Being optimists at APDR, we shall start with the good news. The upgrade of F-35s to the Block 4 configuration will be a step change in capability, possibly as great as the original concept of the aircraft to move from a 4th generation platform to a 5th. The bad news is that the upgrade program has been delayed by about a year – and the situation might get worse. At the heart of the upgrade – and the major cause of the delay – is moving to a configuration known as Technical Refresh-3 (TR-3). This is based on installing a powerful new computer from L3Harris and a lot of associated software. Once in place, it will support the introduction of a host of new sensors, including the radar and the unique Distributed Aperture System (DAS) that allows the pilot to “see” through the aircraft via external cameras and have an uninterrupted 360-degree view of the outside world. The new mission suite computer – or core processor – has 16 times the speed of the original one and 4.5 times the memory. It’s worth remembering that the current hardware is from around 2010 – and some specifications were developed even prior to that. About 14 years later the world has moved on, as reference to any smart phone will indicate. This is an excerpt from APDR. To read the full story, click here. For Editorial Inquiries Contact: Editor Kym Bergmann at [email protected] For Advertising Inquiries Contact: Director of Sales Graham Joss at [email protected]