Uncertainty surrounds air force 'holy trinity'.

• Author: Harper, Jon
• Position: Budget Matters

* The "holy trinity" of Air Force acquisition programs--the F-35A joint strike fighter, the KC-46A tanker and the long-range strike bomber--are moving forward but key questions about their future remain unanswered, according to a top service official.

The $400 billion Lockheed Martin F-35 program--the largest in Defense Department history--has been plagued by cost overruns, schedule delays and technical glitches.

The Senate Armed Services Committee's fiscal 2016 National Defense Authorization Act withholds about $900 million in procurement funding for the F-35 A until the secretary of defense certifies that the aircraft delivered in 2018 will have full combat capability with Block 3F software.

Resolving the plane's information technology challenges remains a key focus for program managers and engineers, including improving the autonomic logistics information system and "cleaning up some of the fusion issues," said William LaPlante, the assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisitions.

"What we're working on now is making sure that the downloads from the airplane are faster and making sure that the mission data files, software files are correct for the airplane. So it's kind of blocking and tackling things there," he said at an Air Force Association breakfast in Arlington, Virginia.

Even with the ongoing information technology issues, LaPlante said the Senate's NDAA provision didn't raise any "big red flags" in his mind in terms of the Air Force's ability to meet the requirement.

The F-35A "looks like it's on track" to achieve initial operational capability next summer, LaPlante said.

Moving forward, the acquisition chief said the Air Force would like blocks of the F-35A to have an "open architecture" so that sourcing for future upgrades can be open to competition. The service is assessing the costs and benefits of switching to a different type of architecture, LaPlante said.

"It has not been decided that we will do it or won't do it, but it has been decided [that] we're going to try; we're going to explore it," he told reporters after the breakfast.

Working out an effective sustainment strategy for the aircraft is another major hurdle that hasn't received a lot of media attention, according to LaPlante. He noted that sustainment usually accounts for about 70 percent of a major weapon system's life cycle costs.

"That's going to be really a challenge because we've got eight [international] partners; we've got FMS [foreign military sales]...