Lockheed F-35 program receives $735M contract from DOD

The 300th production F-35 aircraft flies off the flight line at Lockheed Martin in Fort Worth, Texas

F-35

Lockheed Martin Corp. has received a $735.7 million modification contract in support of the F-35 Lightening program, according to the U.S. Department of Defense.

The award, to the Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co. unit base in Fort Worth is a modification to a previously awarded advance acquisition contract.

Of the award, $74.7 million will go for the procurement of long-lead time materials, parts, components, and effort in support of the F-35 Lightning II Low Rate Initial Production Lot 13 aircraft for the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy, and U.S. Marine Corps. Another $661 million is for economic order quantity funding for procurement of material and equipment that has completed formal hardware qualification testing for the F-35 program for use in procurement contracts to be awarded for the F-35 program low rate initial production Lots 13 and 14 for the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy, and U.S. Marine Corps.

Thirty percent of the work will be performed in Fort Worth, while the rest will be split among Lockheed locations in El Segundo, California (25 percent); Warton, United Kingdom (20 percent); Orlando, Florida (10 percent); Nashua, New Hampshire (5 percent); Nagoya, Japan (5 percent); and Baltimore, Maryland (5 percent). The work should be complete by Dec. 2019.

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On June 11, the F-35 Joint Program Office and Lockheed Martin announced it has delivered the 300th production F-35 aircraft. The 300th aircraft is a U.S. Air Force F-35A, to be delivered to Hill Air Force Base, Utah.

“The F-35 weapons system is a key enabler of our National Defense Strategy and is providing our warfighters the combat proven, advanced capabilities they need to meet mission requirements,” said Vice Admiral Mat Winter, program executive officer for the F-35 Joint Program Office. “The 300th production aircraft delivery is a significant milestone that highlights the effective F-35 Enterprise collaboration across the JPO, U.S. services, partners and industry. Moving forward, our F-35 team remains committed to driving costs down, quality up and faster delivery timelines across our development, production and sustainment lines of effort.”

The first 300 F-35s include 197 F-35A conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL) variants, 75 F-35B short takeoff/vertical landing (STOVL) variants, and 28 F-35C carrier variants (CV) and have been delivered to U.S. and international customers. More than 620 pilots and 5,600 maintainers have been trained, and the F-35 fleet has surpassed more than 140,000 cumulative flight hours.

“This milestone is a testament to the hard work and dedication of our joint government and industry team as we collaborate to deliver transformational F-35 capabilities to the men and women in uniform,” said Greg Ulmer, Lockheed Martin vice president and general manager of the F-35 program. “We are focused on reducing costs, increasing efficiencies, and ensuring the highest level of quality as we ramp to full rate production and sustainment of the operational fleet.”