Pentagon focused on weapons, data fusion as F-35 nears combat use

Lockheed Martin Corp's F-35 fighter jet is making good progress as it nears initial combat use by the U.S. Marine Corps in July 2015, but the company must still finalise the software needed to deliver weapons and fuse data from its many sensors, the Pentagon's F-35 program chief told Reuters.

"Getting to 2015 there's a whole lot of things that have to be put in place, not the least of which is the software on the programme," said Lt. Gen. Chris Bogdan, the Air Force three-star general who took over the helm of the $392 billion (£239 billion) F-35 programme around one year ago.

Software was the programme's No.1 critical issue, he said, noting that the jet alone had more than 8.5 million lines of code, while its related systems had 11 or 12 million more.

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