Five Of Six Air Force F-35 Fighter Jets Could Not Take Off During Testing

An F-35 Lightning II taxis to the parking ramp Nov. 11, 2015, at Luke Air Force Base, Ariz. U.S. Air Force photo/Tech. Sgt. Timothy Boyer

Clay Dillow, Fortune: Only One of Six Air Force F-35s Could Actually Take Off During Testing

Software glitches continue to dog the nation’s newest fighter jet.

Five of six Air Force F-35 fighter jets were unable to take off during a recent exercise due to software bugs that continue to hamstring the world’s most sophisticated—and most expensive—warplane.

During a mock deployment at Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho, just one of the $100 million Lockheed Martin LMT -0.04% F-35s was able to boot its software successfully and get itself airborne during an exercise designed to test the readiness of the F-35, FlightGlobal reports. Nonetheless, the Air Force plans to declare its F-35s combat-ready later this year.

Details surrounding the failed exercise were disclosed earlier this week in written testimony presented to Congress by J. Michael Gilmore, the Pentagon’s chief weapons tester.

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WNU Editor: If only 1 out of 6 F-35s can actually take off during a test, how can they then do this test/exercise .... A-10 vs. F-35: Air Force warplanes to face off (CNN).