Lockheed Martin still moving F-16 production
to South Carolina
Lockheed Martin has said it will continue
with plans to move its F-16 production line to Greenville, S.C., as previously
announced, following a partnership announcement Monday to move production to
India.
By Stephen Carlson | June 20, 2017 at 3:40 PM
June 20 (UPI) -- Lockheed Martin has said it will
continue to move its F-16 production line to its Greenville, S.C. facility
following the partnership announced with Tata Advanced Systems to produce the
F-16.
"Our original plans to move F-16 production to
Greenville have not changed," John Losinger, spokesman for the F-16
program at Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, told UPI.
On Monday at the Paris Air Show, Lockheed Martin and Tata
Advanced Systems signed an agreement to make India the main hub for future F-16
services, logistics, and plane and parts production.
This would serve F-16 customers worldwide and would
provide India the means to customize the F-16 with their own equipment.
In March, Lockheed announced it would move it's F-16
production line to Greenville from Ft. Worth so the Texas facility can focus on
F-35 Lightning II production.
The timeline for how this transition would happen is
uncertain, meaning Greenville production of the F-16 will be assured for at
least the immediate future. The Indian air force is holding a competition between
the F-16 Block 70 and the Saab Gripen E for its next single-engine fighter
plane.
"If India picks the F-16, at least the initial
production run would take place at Greenville," Losinger said. "We
don't have a timeline yet on when or if production would be moved to India from
Greenville."
Source: upi.com
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