Gregory Masiello told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the U.S. military has accepted six Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II aircraft for the Marine Corps without radars installed. He said the aircraft were accepted that way because AN/APG-85 radar production has not yet caught up.
“We have accepted six aircraft for the Marine Corps that do not have a radar installed. That is correct,” Masiello said at the hearing. The first production lot of the AN/APG-85 is scheduled to be delivered in 2028, leaving the Marine Corps to operate aircraft that are tied to the next radar standard before that hardware reaches the fleet.
Senate Armed Services Committee hearing
Senator Mark Kelly pressed the issue directly, asking whether the Marine Corps had been accepting airplanes with no radar in them. Masiello’s answer put a number on it: six aircraft, all for the Marine Corps, and all without the radar installed.
The radar is part of the Block 4 package for all variants of the F-35. That means the aircraft accepted now are entering service before a key sensor in the broader upgrade path arrives, rather than after the upgrade is complete.
Block 4 and AN/APG-85
The Marine Corps said the Block 4 modernization program is necessary to ensure that the Marine Corps and Marine Corps and Joint Force can continue to project air superiority against future threats. The service also said the Department of War deliberately undertook a highly concurrent development and production program for Block 4 capabilities, Technical Refresh 3, APG-85, and the largest fighter aircraft production line in the world.
The Marine Corps said that approach was meant to keep production aircraft moving toward Block 4 capability instead of building Block 3 F-35s that would later need extensive retrofit. That is the tradeoff now visible in the six radarless aircraft: the fleet keeps moving, but some airframes arrive before the AN/APG-85 does.
GAO readiness numbers
The Government Accountability Office added pressure to the debate two weeks ago, saying the average F-35 full mission capable rate across all variants fell from 38 percent to 25 percent between Fiscal Years 2020 and 2025. GAO defines full mission capable as an aircraft that can perform all of its missions.
The F-35 Joint Program Office has disagreed with the Government Accountability Office’s methodology for those readiness rates, and Kelly’s exchange with Masiello tied that dispute to the radarless deliveries. For Marine Corps operators, the practical question now is whether the six aircraft stay in that configuration until the AN/APG-85 reaches the line in 2028.
