dr. gilmore and mr. sullivan's testimony indicate that significant challenges remain in completing the final software block, block 3-f. this gives the f-35 full war time capability. and you also indicated that the software will be four months late. what is the significance if this software is delivered four months late? could it impact the scheduled operational test and operation, iot&e and what are you doing to fix this? >> thank you, sir. the issue today with the block 3 software and we see the problem in both our 3-i or 3 initial software has to do with stability. just very quickly, what the pilots are seeing is when they take off and they need to use the sensors, particularly the radar, there are some instances where the communication between the radar and the main computers in the airplane are mistimed and that mistiming builds up little delays and eventually those delays get to be big enough where the radar shuts off. okay. and the radar will recover but it will recover and take a few minutes to re

dr. gilmore, the air force chief of staff has said that the a-10 will not be replaced by the f-35. on the record. within the last few weeks. and then said that to me in a conversation last week. surprising me. is anyone here -- is the air force going to be updating their o.r.d. or >> i have not heard that they are. >> right. >> all i know is about the existing operational acquire men's. requirements. the f-35 willay , and we are in6 the same situation. we have the same gap or capabilities that will be degraded, which is why it is so important we have this buyout. . >> i don't know if these will be degraded, that is what the testing is supposed to do. that is why we were planning it to be absolutely fair. we are going to co

dr. gilmore's analysis indicates even longer than that. fourth work regard to technical risks on the program, program has most recently found fixes for its engine seal problem that we were talking about last year and the design of the helmet mounted display and it has begun to retrofit aircraft with those fixes, they're not all in but the solutions are there. two new challenges have recently been identified, one concerns the ejection seat and the other concerns the wing structure of the carrier variant. the program is working now to find solutions to each of those problems, i think on the ejection seat they have a pretty good concept figured out to solve that one. it should also be noted that the autonomic logistics information system known as alice continues to be challenging and has been cited as one of the most significant outstanding risks to the program today and that has a lot to do with operations and maintenance as you know. finally, manufacturing and production data continue to show positive trend toward more efficient production.

dr. michael gilmore. dr. michael j. sullivan. the honorable shawn stackly.istant secretary of the navy for research development and acquisition and lieutenant f 35 officer. because we were held up for votes i will enter my segment for the record if there is no objection and we will also enter ms. sanchez's statement in for the record and we will proceed right to the statement of our witnesses. which i believe we'll start with dr. gilmore, correct? dr. gilmore. >> thank you, mr. chairman, members of the committee. i'll focus on readiness for operational test and evaluation. my estimate is the program won't be ready to begin until mid calendar year 2018 at the earliest. that's about a one-year delay compared to what the current program is carrying. about six months relative to threshold gates. the reason is for the following. most complex mission testing remains as those verification of fixes to significant problems. some of those fixes having been identified and some not. mission system stability including radar, still a problem, inadequate infusion of censor