There you have it! The #F35 — America's most expensive weapon system at over $2 TRILLION — cannot…
March 18, 2026 · 0 likes · 0 comments
Defense Cybersecurity
There you have it! The #F35 — America's most expensive weapon system at over $2 TRILLION — cannot get its software upgrades to work. During an active war.
Let me break this down. The United States Department of War's own testing office just confirmed that software upgrades for the F-35 have "stagnated." The TR-3 upgrade — the one that was supposed to increase processing power 37x and memory 20x — was "predominately unusable" for most of last year. Due to "stability problems, shortfalls in capability and ongoing discovery of deficiencies."
Meanwhile, F-35s are flying combat missions over Iran right now. With OLDER software. The Marines on the USS Abraham Lincoln are using TR-2 — the previous version — because the upgrade simply does not work.
This is a $2 TRILLION program. 2,470 jets planned. 812 already delivered. And the software that makes them a "flying computer" with 20 million lines of code cannot be updated reliably.
I spent 3 years as CSO fighting exactly this problem. The defense industrial base treats software like hardware — waterfall development, multi-year timelines, zero agility. Lockheed Martin is using what they call an "agile development framework" but the DoW's own report says they are "failing to deliver on the expectations" of that framework. That is not agile. That is waterfall with a marketing label.
And it gets worse. Only 3 of 9 planned cybersecurity tests were completed last year. Why? Staff cuts at the very office responsible for testing whether our most advanced fighter jet can survive a cyberattack. We are reducing oversight while flying into combat against a nation-state adversary with demonstrated cyber capabilities.
We are flying jets into combat with software that cannot be upgraded and cybersecurity that has not been fully tested. In 2026.
This is what happens when you spend $2 trillion on hardware and treat software as an afterthought. The F-35 is the most capable fighter jet in the world — but only if its software works. Right now, it does not.
What are your thoughts?
Let me break this down. The United States Department of War's own testing office just confirmed that software upgrades for the F-35 have "stagnated." The TR-3 upgrade — the one that was supposed to increase processing power 37x and memory 20x — was "predominately unusable" for most of last year. Due to "stability problems, shortfalls in capability and ongoing discovery of deficiencies."
Meanwhile, F-35s are flying combat missions over Iran right now. With OLDER software. The Marines on the USS Abraham Lincoln are using TR-2 — the previous version — because the upgrade simply does not work.
This is a $2 TRILLION program. 2,470 jets planned. 812 already delivered. And the software that makes them a "flying computer" with 20 million lines of code cannot be updated reliably.
I spent 3 years as CSO fighting exactly this problem. The defense industrial base treats software like hardware — waterfall development, multi-year timelines, zero agility. Lockheed Martin is using what they call an "agile development framework" but the DoW's own report says they are "failing to deliver on the expectations" of that framework. That is not agile. That is waterfall with a marketing label.
And it gets worse. Only 3 of 9 planned cybersecurity tests were completed last year. Why? Staff cuts at the very office responsible for testing whether our most advanced fighter jet can survive a cyberattack. We are reducing oversight while flying into combat against a nation-state adversary with demonstrated cyber capabilities.
We are flying jets into combat with software that cannot be upgraded and cybersecurity that has not been fully tested. In 2026.
This is what happens when you spend $2 trillion on hardware and treat software as an afterthought. The F-35 is the most capable fighter jet in the world — but only if its software works. Right now, it does not.
What are your thoughts?