Update on the F-35 Aircraft Program

Good afternoon everyone, and thank you General Masiello for being here, uh and uh being our only star witness today. Um and thank you to my colleagues for their attention to this very important discussion on the F-thirty-five program, which as we all know is a cornerstone of American air power, and one of the most consequential defense programs of our generation, and it's all about generations these days, although I've noticed that generations uh the the time line of a generation is much shorter than it used to be. The F-thirty-five is a strategic asset that strengthens deterrence, enhances interoperability, and reinforces the alliances and partnerships that underpin global security. Its success among our allies and partners is a testament to both its unmatched capabilities and its ability to enable seamless operations alongside United States forces. Nations around the world continue to choose the F-thirty-five because it strengthens collective defense and regional stability. That growing demand reflects confidence in American technology, industry and leadership, while also delivering real benefits to the United States through improved coalition readiness greater burden sharing and a stronger industrial base that supports American workers and war fighters. At the same time, we all recognize that success cannot be measured solely by sales or participation. The program must continue delivering the advanced capabilities our service members need on schedule and at a reasonable cost. That brings us to one of the most important topics before us today, making sure the Block-four modernization effort gets and stays on track. Block-four is essential to preserving the F-thirty-five's operational advantage in an increasingly contested environment. Our adversaries are investing heavily in advanced air defenses, electronic warfare capabilities, and next generation aircraft. To maintain the F-thirty-five's edge, we must deliver the upgrades that improve lethality, survivability, sensor integration, range, and mission effectiveness. Finally, I'd l- also like an update on the joint program office's plans to transition toward more service to specific program management responsibilities as required by the fiscal year twenty-two National Defense Authorization Act, which directed the department to establish separate program offices for each military service by twenty-twenty-seven. I am interested in whether the department remains on track to meet the statutory deadline and how it plans to execute this transition while preserving the efficiencies of a joint program and avoiding disruptions to production readiness and modernization efforts. With that, I thank you for joining us today, and I look forward to your testimony, General. Senator Kelly.

Thank you, Mister Chairman, General, thank you for being here today. Uh, the F- thirty-five remains a cornerstone of American air power and a critical, critical capability for the Air Force, the Navy, the Marine Corps. I've seen this firsthand. I had the opportunity a couple years ago to fly an F-sixteen against an F- thirty-five and it was um informative to say the least. Could not see it on radar, even when I'm looking right at it, which was impressive. Had a crappy first turn, so I was able to gun them, um, after a nine G turn in an F sixteen. Um, and then I've also had the opportunity to fly the simulator down in Pax River, against J twenties in the F thirty five. Um, impressive capability, nothing like when I was line in the navy. Um. This airplane's gonna, eh, you know, have a major role in any future conflict. And especially in like a contested environment. Um. Today's hearing, though, is about, you know, how do we, you know, field the F-thirty-five uh, and get the airplanes out into the fleet and get them full emission capable with the challenges that remain. And I think it's fair to say that some of these challenges are significant. Um, we've got new capabilities with, uh, block four, um, tech refresh, uh, that are slow to be deployed, um, despite that this is a multi-billion dollar effort. So, we all understand there's challenges with with new technology. Um, I think it's fair to say that we've made some mistakes along the way, but those mistakes shouldn't be the same ones that we made before. I'm also concerned about the long-term sustainment costs of the airplane for the entire fleet. Uh, this has a big impact on the department's budget, uh, and also then impacts the cost of acquiring airplanes. Uh, at one point the estimate was as large as, uh, over a trillion dollars for the - for the program. So we need to understand what the department's doing to reduce these future potential costs. And if those costs continue to rise, they're gonna increase pressure on, uh, readiness and on other, uh, modernization priorities across the entire department. So this could mean less money to invest in the force structure that we need for our national security. But I think it is also fair to say that this committee has been a strong supporter of the F-thirty-five, and I am a strong supporter of it. I - I think its, um, its - its capability is, uh, not like anything we've really had before. Uh, but that also means if we're going to continue to support it, we need accountability. and we need to have a clear understanding of how the department is improving readiness, controlling costs, and ensuring that the program delivers on the promises. Um, we must ensure that we do not sacrifice other important acquisition programs in the DOD portfolio. So I look forward to hearing from you, General, and discussing a path forward for the F-thirty-five. Thank you.

Thank you, Senator Kelly. Um, so Lieutenant General Gregory Macielo is the Program Executive Officer, F thirty-five, Lightning Two, Joint Program Office. Um, hard to imagine uh a more significant position right now with what we're dealing with. One of the things um generalize b- before you you make your opening statement and we start the d- discussion is I'm going to be wanting some sort of an update as well on, the multi-year procurement process, how the How you see that playing out, you know, we we've recognized that as a committee. Um, we just wanna would love to get an assessment, your assessment of all of that. And with that, General, thank you for being here and I'd I'd um open it for your opening statement.

First of all, thank you, uh, Chairman Kramer and Ranking Member Kelly, members of the subcommittee. I truly enjoy the opportunity to be here today. Course, we just started. Uh, but the last time somebody in my position was in front of anyone from the SASC was in twenty sixteen. So a lot has changed in the program since then. I have only been in this role since last July, but a considerable amount has changed. So I'll I'll run through an opening statement, talk and look forward to uh the discussion. I I appreciate the fact that you both uh talked about the F thirty-five as the cornerstone, This is for the US and for many of our allies and partners, this is the capacity fighter at scale, multi-role, there is anything else like it and what it does. Um, what I feel in my job and the job of our joint program office is to ensure that our globally deployed or deployable fleet for the US and our allies and partners is ready, it's affordable, it's lethally effective and survivable. Now, I realize that it's not my job to judge affordability, it's the people that have and and pay the money. So we do talk about cost control and I'm happy to talk about that in the program. And I will highlight things like we measure in cost per tail per year. And if you look at where we are across all of our variants in the US inventory, we are better than the targets that we have been given. So that's not good enough, and we will talk about our global sustainment system reset and the uh the areas that we're going after in not just capacity first uh i will say currently there are over thirteen hundred uh operational f thirty-fives out there eight hundred and thirty-two of which are inside the us inventory and the other ones are with our partner nations uh that's uh in if you look in numbers of bases there are currently forty-two different sites i happen to have gone to poland just a week before last for the that new base stand-up and for their first aircraft arrival. And in addition to that, there are thirteen ships. Three of which are international or another nation's, the rest are ours. But if I look back in perspective when somebody sat here would have been General Bogdan in twenty sixteen, we had twelve uh global participants in the program. Today we have twenty. Um, we had flight hours then at about sixty thousand. Now we're over one point two million. We have learned a lot across this time frame. There were a lot of aircraft then. There were a hundred and seventy, and I already pointed out we've delivered and have out there flying and operating over thirteen hundred. We had hundreds of pilots, three hundred. Then we have over three thousand, almost three thousand, five hundred pilots trained and almost twenty-one thousand maintainers trained as opposed to the twenty seven hundred we had then. One service uh happened to have been the Marine Corps had achieved IOC and uh twenty sixteen were up to fourteen different services, so well beyond uh our three in our country. And several of those countries have received their entire program of record and two of which have declared FOC, the Netherlands and Australia. Uh, I mentioned the site activations, there were nine were now out. That's a significant uh footprint. So why do I talk about it that way? This program is truly joint, not just across the departments of Air Force and the Navy and our three US services, in development, in sustainment, in production, and operationally. In development, we had our partner nations early on contributing that way. In training today, just last week, we had an international force in the high north training in Norway, landing their jets on the highways in Finland, US jets as well as Italian and other nations, preparing as a joint force. Uh, that is not something I'm sure we envisioned in twenty sixteen. Uh, we have the same in the Pacific, and we share a global spares pool that I'm sure we will talk about. Uh, it has its advantages, which we will talk about, uh, In some cases I'd like to talk about some specifics in that in our closed session. In this session, I think I can say uh one of our challenges, and you talked about it, is if I have over thirteen hundred operational uh aircraft out there, I believe we have set and enabled a sustainment system for about seven to eight hundred. So there is our challenge in readiness. We have a North Star for eighty percent MC across the entirety of the fleet. and we need to figure out how to do that. That leads me to the generational investment in PB twenty seven. I see I'm almost out of time, but I will uh close the opening statement with "Operationally significant for those that have been briefed and understand what the aircraft can do, and you uh both certainly have, but the operations in Rough Rider, Absolute Resolve, Midnight Hammer and Epic Fury demonstrate the unique capabilities And I have been told by uh many operators, this is the only aircraft that can hit some of the targets that it was able to hit, and see everything that it could be to actually act as a quarterback of that joint force. Um, it's not just us. I know other nations that I mentioned. I know of a Norwegian pilot falling in on a Dutch aircraft and flying combat air patrol over Poland. Uh, that is not something we envisioned before, but it should show the strictable link of this global nature of the program and the challenges and the benefits that that brings for us so with that i will uh finish my closing statement and so i don't forget uh here i'll close that statement with a happy birthday to craten green sitting behind you i appreciate uh his support as well and how pleased he is that i mentioned that

yeah that was a great idea sir i think that was a good one yeah Well, th- thanks for that, and as long as you brought it up, uh, let's just get right into the um, the paying for it piece of it because, you know, we're in this moment now where um, your fiscal year twenty-seven budget included um considerable amount of money in mandatory spending for the, for the F-thirty-five, in fact over thirteen billion. Um, some of it, some of this is additional aircraft and associated initial spares, but a lot of it is fully funding and accelerating existing mission critical programs. Um, to include one point three billion for the block for engine and power thermal management upgrade. Can you give us a sense of how you break that out between the actu, you know, the the the requested budget and appropriations, normal proc- appropriations and um possible reconciliation three point O, and if there's a contingency plan if one or the other doesn't work out, because as you know we're rather famous for not funding things on time.

Yes, sir, I appreciate that. First, I will start for I appreciate the reconciliation last year. One billion dollars was allocated towards the F thirty-five program. That's going under contract. That will enable us to help stabilize some of the, uh, support that we mentioned in spare parts. For the twenty-seven budget, I'll be clear that we submitted the our budget for the F thirty-five program in its entirety. And so what is in the the base budget as well as in, you know, whether you call it discretionary or mandatory, the totality is what we believe is required. It gets after, it does have an increase in aircraft. It's a buy of eighty-five aircraft for the US, and that combines with the international partners and friends, uh, out there as well. So if we did not get the totality of the budget or only got one portion of it, there's a significant impact for the production line and the number of aircraft, as well as in the details of how that budget was uh split. So I understand uh I am obviously supportive of the budget in its entirety. It will fund the Block-four, it will fund the engine core upgrade, as well as the PTMU upgrade, the EPM in its entirety, and both of those are essential for the engine to enable even the full capabilities of the Block-four, as we do it. And I will tell you, it's not my first uh lap in the F thirty-five program. You know, a decade ago I started in here uh with the beginning of what was block four. So, I'm both uh happy to be back and a little, you know, surprised that we haven't fielded as much as we had planned. So, I understand the importance of it. I do recognize that we have, of the original requirements, we have fielded twenty-two of them. And we continue in the incremental software upgrades. We delivered seven of the block four capabilities in last year's upgrade. There's another six planned for this summer in the software upgrade. So, but to fully do the development work, we do need that budget.

OK, so then I um

Thanks for that. And that gets a little bit into maybe what I want to bring up next. And that is what what what problems do you see uh in the deployment pipeline, that are they're most readily fixable? to to achieve what you know to to achieve the goal like to get up to speed as you describe it.

Yes, sir. Well, I will tell you uh I'll talk about sustainment first. I think in my job I think I work for the aviation maintainers and I think uh if I look at it, our job is to deliver combat readiness. It is sustainment first of our existing fleet and the ability to maintain the fleet that we get. So we looked and did a very detailed analysis across our whole system. came across five areas that we now call in our global uh GSS reset, and that's sustainment system, and we're gonna go through and start executing that. That is not just solely about buying spare parts. It is inclusive of that, making a catch-up on the investment that we have failed to make in the past, and then a keep-up in that, but it is also re-looking at our entire maintenance plan. Uh, all the way through, uh, from the very uh, O-level all the way to the depot-level with a million plus flight hours, we have learned on the aircraft, we can make some adjustments. With over thirteen countries operating the aircraft, we have lessons learned from people that are from different countries and why they have time on wing and some components that we don't have. And we can apply that. So we will go through and do that and the optimization of the entirety of our maintenance system.

So, uh, one of the things you, you talked about, uh, in your opening statement I think, but it was you you highlighted that the sort of the glob global nature of of this um airplane and the opportunities that presents for the industrial base and for alliances. Maybe give us a sense of of how our allies, you know, the the other potential customers viewing what we're going through right now, in terms of whether it's wariness about the, you know, procurement, uh on-time procurement, or um lessons these lessons learned that you that you know that you're learning are are how are they feeling about it how how is that how do you handle all of that

well sir it's a it it's quite a large program as you talk about i tell you they do pay attention to the us budget and the support that we get and are looking forward to the approval of the p b twenty seven because it puts in place stability across our industrial base and that is international it certainly is across forty nine states uh in our country and Puerto Rico and it's uh thousands of suppliers across Lockheed Martin as well as Pratt and Whitney uh and others, but it's also international. So they are certainly watching that. The aircraft is assembled in Texas, in Japan or in Italy. They are looking at those impacts and the flow of all those parts and pieces. Um they they certainly need to know that we are fully in and supportive, as well as the development.

Great. All right, thank you. Uh, yeah, Mike, sir.

If I could, you asked me about multi-year, sir.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I did earlier. N- if you wanna ask that's fine. We, looks like we're gonna have plenty of time, so S- Senator Kelly, I'll give him one more minute than you'd take from me.

Yeah, go ahead.

Go ahead.

Okay, I was just gonna say on the multi-year procurement, the most important thing uh for me in that is we do have a stable aircraft. We have stable design. We are mature. We're we're now looking at our lot twenty aircraft. It doesn't mean that there isn't change and it doesn't mean that there aren't challenges. But we now know what they are, and we have the ability in a long-term uh contract. So I'm very appreciative of the committee's support for the multi-year. And I know that our ledge prop has made it over, that asks up to a ten year time frame with uh procurement that is not just of the production line aircraft, but also the initial spares, also of the mod kits. All the hardware that we would buy would aggregate that demand across the entirety of the program. We have not done that before. I think, Senator, that's gets after some of the cost objectives, cuz you have aggregated demand, which is really good. It's also the stability of that industrial base that you just talked about. Um, there is a companion to that in sustainment that we need to make sure we have, and that will also feed into how we transition, which is another question you had, into the services as that continues to mature.

Excellent. All right. Ranking member Kelly, you're recognized for at least seven and a half minutes.

Thank you. Um, so the GAO's FMC rate is, they said twenty-five percent, your office claims it's fifty-six percent. So let's say it's somewhere between, or maybe I'll, we'll go with your number, fifty percent. So half of the airplanes are not fully mission capable. Um, when, and I think it's the Marine Corps that has been accepting airplanes with no radar in it? Is that correct?

We have accepted six aircraft for the Marine Corps that do not have a radar installed. That is correct.

And because they wanna wait for the APG eighty-five, is my assumption.

They do.

Yeah. So, and I get it, and we can we can talk downstairs some more about the capability of the radar, and the, and what the challenges are going forward. Um, so I assume that those airplanes can't count as fully mission capable with no radar.

I don't think I would count them as fully mission capable. Uh, but in y- your early statement on the numbers, twenty-five, fifty-six is what we say for the mission capability as opposed to FMC,

Okay. Yeah.

full mission capability, and I know you understand, uh, the differences.

But Jen, you you say you don't think. I can't imagine a scenario where an F-thirty-five with no radar could be a FMC airplane.

I understand, sir.

Yeah. Okay. So, so part of it is that. What is the other issues i remember early on you were having turbine blade cracks from odd is is that one of the other bigger problems

that is not one of the bigger problems in production the uh the integrally uh it's the blade inside of the engine that you're talking about had some production challenges they've now triple sourced the production to help on that and we have improvement uh across the engine production and as well as the reliability

so what's the top three things that takes uh airplane out of being fully mission capable

i would say the top three uh are the software capability enabled uh things tr three that you mentioned earlier is not a degrader that is mission capable in there but that is the backbone that we plug in all of the other bits and pieces So the radar as you pointed for a subset, uh the eighty-one radar that is in the preponderance of the fleet is up and operating fine so that's not the major driver uh we do have some challenges with uh the time on wing for our canopies that is the a major degrader that some will rate uh it's a low observable aircraft and therefore that piece is uh integral part of it.

Is there um With just skin issues like low observable repairs that need to be done, does that tend to take airplanes out of

Yes, sir.

flying condition?

Yes, sir. But that is also one where I say there's an opportunity. Some of uh our different countries or different squadrons have better time on wing, and we go and we look at that, we've done that, it's maintenance, it is taking care of the issue when it arises, as opposed to noting it flying the aircraft coming back and having a larger issue if that makes sense

so if the sustainment system out there is sized i think you said for seven to eight hundred aircraft that means the parts and other depot level maintenance and other things but there's thirteen hundred operational airplanes how do you get to a sustainment system that is for thirteen hundred and how long will that take

Yes, sir. So that is part of our GSS reset. And I will tell you what we have done about that. We went back and looked at the modeling that we had for the spares that we were asking folks to buy, and we have remodeled and baselined. Now, it's not JPO math. We have made sure you mentioned both of the other services as far as the Air Force and the Navy and gone through to make sure it's the same thing. And that is now what we're putting for the requirement, which is the reason why in this generational investment of the twenty-seven budget will help us. The uh so we will fill up the available parts. I think that is the main driver. It's not a systemic issue with the system having the ability. It's the fact that we didn't put enough parts and pieces on the shelf, and we've increased the demand exponentially with the number of aircraft fielded. And we didn't do the same thing with the spare parts and the system. Uh.

Then, and then earlier you said there were five areas in sustainment that you needed to focus on. You said one, it wasn't just not buying enough spares as you mentioned,

It i-

so that has to be one as spares.

That is one. It is the

Depot level maintenance was two. What were the other three?

The other three, I have that. Uh, by the way, when we talk about the depot level maintenance, I would say, uh, one of the things that's important, you talked about our organic capability. Over fifty-six percent of our depot repair today uh is done in our US services, the Navy and the Air Force uh Industrial Base. So we already have significant participation. It is ramping up that depot capability as well as the optimization of the maintenance plans. Those are different, if you will. When I said that, let me tell you about the global spares pool. uh optimized maintenance program right sizing that oh it's expanding both the depot as well the organic as well as our supplier capacity told you fifty six percent is in our organic the rest is in the industrial base that we need to go back and and maintain and uh i will i will highlight another point for us it's important for us to get our

that's right

our log it the logistics it in place so that what the way this program was formed originally under uh tisper if you recall from that we now are going through and getting the access that will enable not just our right to repair but the actual insight into the entire repair uh capacity it will help us not just on the audit but it's fundamental in getting right sizing that industrial base

and then finally does the air force regret not buying the navy version that carries more gas because it has a bigger wing

i probably should defer to the air force on that

loaded question

but i don't find many people that are sad if they have more fuel to fly in their aircraft

right thank you

uh thank you um i don't have a whole lot more before we go on to the um you know to the close session but i but you you you speak so articulately about again back to my point about the the global nature of this um airplane and maybe if if you would just elaborate a little bit more first of all how that how that impacts well there is lot of favorabilities for the united states but how it impacts the industrial base and then sort of the um the other part if you will the the the allied nature of of being an ally that shares the operation if if you will Speak to that from a human standpoint, a a a war fighter's standpoint as much as from the machinery itself.

Yes, sir. Uh, well, I will tell you that, um, sitting on the flight line in Poland just a few weeks ago and having there first, with the Polish markings on the aircraft, arrive, the enthusiasm in there of being so close to the United States as well as the global partners was evident in their president and their defense minister announced in their statements they're gonna double their programmer record. If it was thirty-two, they're gonna buy an additional. Now, I have not seen the money or the contract yet, but that's significant uh, you know, context. If I look in a few years in Europe, as an example, we will have almost eight hundred F-thirty-fives distributed across multiple nations. Less than ten percent of that number will be US aircraft. So when we talk about burden sharing, interoperability, uh, you know, both in cost and in the actual war fighting capability, that's demonstrated. To a different scale because of the number of countries, we have that in the Pacific as well, whether it's the Koreans and the Japanese, Singapore and Australia, there will be hundreds of aircraft, and for the US, depending on basing and deployment i- over there, we'll have less than a quarter of those aircraft. So it is large in the program, and it's also shared in the industrial base. and the funds that go in there. We do get parts and pieces from their industrial base that go into the aircraft as well as ours that go throughout. I - I will tell you, um, wh- when - I would never have envisioned that we would have had a, uh, a British pilot flying Australian aircraft. Maybe you would say that because they're English speaking, but we've had that in deployments. We've had marine aircraft deploy on uh british ships going around the globe it it is different our aircraft even we have language barriers uh as humans the aircraft do not have language barriers when they talk to each other the way the interoperability of the aircraft itself amongst its flight but it's really global we will field starting next year a um a a beyond line of sight receive capability across and you figure out of the we get that across the globe.

So, so right now your cooling, you got about thirty kilo watts, block four requires thirty-two is what i have here, but to get to the cooling needed to the for the full capability of the apg eighty five needs to be somewhat higher, it seems like sixty two Kilowatts of cooling?

Yes, sir, the requirement that we have for the program going forward is sixty-two to eighty. Uh, we can talk specifics about the radar downstairs. That that is incorporated into the block four uh requirements. The challenge I see is if the totality of block four, when it's installed in on the aircraft, it takes uh the complete power available, which is thirty-two. It's a cooling uh really is what we're looking at, the ability. And there's no margin, which, as you know, is not a smart way to go. So we have an incremental approach to increase that, and we have an ongoing program to look at a more systemic and affordable, uh, upgrade to the power thermal management across the program.

So when those, when the APG eighty-five radars start to get delivered, I imagine some airplanes are gonna come with them installed, and others they'll go back to the depot, I imagine. Depot level maintenance to get the radar installed on those six Marine Corps jets. Is the PTMS gonna be available at the same time to get the full

It will n- it it it will neither be required at the same time, nor be available. Um, so for the engine core upgrade that we anticipate and have asked for additional funding on that, we anticipate that being fielded in thirty-one and the uh it will come with a marginal uh increase in the power thermal management, but the actual system that's under review and looking for the forward program will come a few years later into the system which is when we would have the additional capabilities beyond block four not yet to be determined, that will require that.

So will you be able to talk downstairs about what uh limited capability the APG eighty-five is gonna have if it doesn't have all the cooling?

We will be able to talk details down.

Right. Thank you.

Senator Moody, welcome.

Well, thank you. And I get to sit closest to you.

Thank you, man.

Don't be intimidated because I'm sitting so close. Um, I am the newest member of this committee, it is so nice to meet you. Thank you for your long service to this country. Uh, Florida, which is my home state, is um home to the hundred and twenty fifth fighter wing, where we train the F-thirty-five pilots, uh, and so important to, uh, our state and so many jobs and so many people that rely on the program. And one of the things that my team and I have been discussing is I get to know, uh, more about, you know, we have numerous bases and numerous combatant command in Florida, and I'm learning more about the programs that, um, rely a lot on our state and - and the military service members that are in our state. Um and this month the Government Accountability Office reported on um persistent readiness and management problems in the F-thirty-five program and because Florida is such a large part of that program, I wanted to ask you a little bit about that. Um fleet-wide the mission capable rate fell from sixty-seven percent to forty-four percent since twenty-twenty-one and the GAO found that the department couldn't fully account for spare parts or track the funds that it spends on them. And they recommended that the department build a system with quality control safeguards to properly track those parts costs and incentive payments. And I just wanted to kind of hear from you. We were talking about that and we wanted to hear what, uh, was being done to address that and, uh, how those involved in the program in Florida might be able to, uh, follow, track, and rely on what you're being,

Yes, ma'am. Uh, well, first I will say, uh, as a legal resident of the state of Florida, although have been, uh, living elsewhere for quite some time, I appreciate your comments and the support across the state.

So you are my constituent.

It would be apparently so.

Yes.

Uh, now with respect to the GAO, I know that those, uh, reports are controlled, unclassified, uh, data, but I have spent time with the uh with the auditors, the investigators for that uh hours, sitting through, walking through details. Um, I understand how they came to their data. Uh, I would tell you context matters and I might have a I don't dispute their, their numbers and how they do it, uh, as opposed to how we might articulate it if that's part of the differences. We are aligned that there are areas to change. I will tell you, uh, I am fully committed uh for audit uh ability of F thirty five uh it's not just the way I dress it's inherent in what we should be doing being good stewards of not just our taxpayers but as we just discussed global uh processes I believe we do have the ability we have done a physical inventory of all of those parts and pieces so I'm quite confident in our ability to track our gear uh today some of their uh data is backwards looking and we have made some changes. They have a series of recommendations which we embrace and are in action and working on them.

How in terms of the number of recommendations are what would you say percentage-wise, you've accomplished or completed?

I would say they're probably all to some degree in process because even the one that we think is closed out that's over forwarded for review. Uh, lots of actions and uh, I previously discussed about our global sustainment system reset um that i think will address when i talk to both of the auditors and getting after whether it's the maintenance program the spares the processing through there the organic and the commercial depot repair will align greatly to resolve some of what they have identified

thank you sir

thank you um i think all all of my questions remaining will be better for the closed session um did you have any more either of you that you wanted to take up any more here that's just um if not then we'll close this portion of the uh hearing and we'll take it up and oh say ten ten to fifteen minutes downstairs

sir yeah well i think we're gonna have to take some more people with us