The US Air Force has declared the F-35 A combat ready.

The Pentagon’s director of operational test and evaluation (DOT&E) has declared that it is not even close:

The Pentagon’s top weapons tester is again sounding the alarm over the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, warning that significant deficiencies with the gun, challenges integrating the short-range AIM-9X missile and unresolved software bugs could delay fielding of the jet’s full capability.

On the heels of the U.S. Air Force’s milestone decision to declare the F-35A ready for battle, the Pentagon’s director of operational test and evaluation (DOT&E) is raising new concerns about Lockheed Martin’s fifth-generation fighter. In an internal memo to Defense Department leadership Aug. 9, the DOT&E warned the jet still has a long way to go before full combat capability and may run out of funds to fix significant performance problems on time if late discoveries delay the end of the program’s development phase.

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In response to Aviation Week queries, the DOT&E reiterated concerns that the program’s official start date for IOT&E is “not realistic,” repeating the agency’s public assessment that the F-35 will not be ready to begin the test period until mid-2018 at the soonest—assuming the JPO can provide production-representative test aircraft by then.

Late, over budget, and not combat ready.

The internal fun does not shoot straight, there are cracks in the carrier variant’s wings, external carriage of ordinance is at least 2 years away.

The Pentagon procurement process at its finest.