Department of Defense awards contract for 240
F-35 Lightning II planes
Lockheed Martin received the $1.377 billion
contract for slow-rate production and maintenance of the multi-role fighters.
By Stephen Carlson |
May 1, 2017 at 3:50 PM
May 1 (UPI) -- Lockheed Martin has
received a $1.377 billion contract for low-rate initial production of 130 Lot
12 F-35 Lightning II fighter planes. The contract
includes parts, maintenance, and other services for the program, the Department of Defense announced.
In addition the Lot 12 F-35 production for
the Air Force, Navy, Marine Corp and other non-Department of Defense and
foreign customers, the contract provides for initial production of 110 Lot 13
and Lot 14 F-35 Lighting II fighter planes for non-U.S. Department of Defense
participants and foreign sales customers.
Most of the work will be done in Ft. Worth,
Texas, El Segundo, Calif., and Warton, Britain., with the rest spread among
Florida, New Hampsire, Maryland and Japan.
Read entire post: upi.com
With Yet Another Software Delay, Can F-35
Fighters Roll Out Fast Enough?
By Ciro Scotti May 1, 2017
As the Pentagon plans to accelerate
production of the F-35 Lightning II over the next five years, two reports last
week pointed to continued problems for the controversial stealth fighter that
will cost an estimated $1.5 trillion over the next five decades.
One report claimed late
deliveries of the controversial stealth fighter and new development costs that
will add upwards of $1.7 billion to what the General Accounting Office (GAO)
has pegged as a nearly $400 billion acquisition program to buy the
aircraft.
Bloomberg News quoted the Defense Contract
Management Agency as saying that Lockheed Martin “did not meet contract
requirements in 2014, 2015 or 2016.” The DCMA, an arm of the Defense Dept. that
monitors military projects, expects 57 aircraft to be delivered in 2017 vs. the
66 scheduled.
But Mark Johnson, a spokesperson for Lockheed
Martin, while acknowledging that there were delays last year, said in an email
to The Fiscal Times, “Our continued efficiency in building the F-35
adds to our confidence that we will deliver 66 jets in 2017.”
Johnson said Lockheed Martin had slashed the
time it takes to build an F-35 from 150,000 hours in 2011 to 50,000 hours
today. One reason for the delivery delay in 2016, Lockheed Martin claims, was
defective insulation in the fuel system, which it blamed on a “one-time
supplier quality issue.” That caused modifications on 57 aircraft.
The Joint Strike Fighter, as the aircraft is
also known, is expected to reach peak production in 2022, the GAO said, when
125 F-35s are supposed to be delivered at the cost of about $15 billion for
that year.
“We are very confident we have a plan in
place to execute the ramp-up over the next five years,” Lockheed Martin said in
a second email. “Unless something unexpected occurs, we fully intend to execute
that plan.”
However, in accounting for the additional
development costs, the GAO report said the Pentagon “has experienced delays in
testing the software and systems that provide warfighting capabilities, known
as mission systems, largely because the software has been delivered late to be
tested and once delivered has not worked as expected.”
An April 4 story by Bloomberg
Businessweek investigative reporter Paul Barrett asked the question, “Is
the F-35 a Trillion-Dollar Mistake?” It quoted the GAO’s Michael
Sullivan, who oversaw the current report, as saying of the F-35, The military
“didn’t follow the old rule of ‘fly before you buy.’ ”
Source: thefiscaltimes.com
Related post:
F-35 Lightning II: Details
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