now the news (sort of) is DoD awards $743 million contract linked to ninth lot of F-35s...
when the Pentagon will pay for Lot 9 (and how much...
source is FlightGlobal:The US Department of Defense has awarded a Lockheed Martin a $743 million contract linked to the ninth batch of F-35 fighters, as negotiations on a final production contract for Lots 9 and 10 continue.
The contract sets not-to-exceed prices for up to $385 million on a range of services for the US military’s F-35 customers, including redesign and development of components with diminishing manufacturing and material services. The funds also pays for post-production concurrency changes on the 57 aircraft ordered in Lot 9.
Another $333 million is being allotted to set not-to-exceed prices for one F-35A and one F-35B on behalf of a non-US participant in the programme. The contract award notice on 17 October does not identify the participant, but only Italy has ordered both F-35As and F-35Bs in Lot 9.
Another $25.4 million of the award comes from the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) programme to pay for “country unique requirements”. Israel, Japan and South Korea account for the F-35 programme’s three FMS customers so far. Of those three, only Israel and Japan have requested aircraft under the Lot 9 production contract.
The programme’s original schedule called for awarding the final production contract for Lots 9 and 10 and a total of 140 aircraft a year ago, but negotiations have dragged on for months.
they already cut something which is to happen years from now?? it's above me LOL!The lawmakers also recommended that appropriators reverse cuts to the F-35’s Block 4 modernization program included in the Senate bill.
source is DefenseNewsThe defense-policy and -spending bills are at a standstill on Capitol Hill, but 70 House lawmakers are hoping that when Congress returns after the election, they can press appropriators to boost the total F-35 purchase for fiscal year 2017.
In an Oct. 4 letter to House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Rodney Frelinghuysen, R-NJ, and the subcommittee’s top Democrat, Rep. Pete Visclosky of Indiana, the lawmakers advocated for F-35 production increases, citing the impact such a move would have on lowering unit costs.
Both the Senate and House appropriations bills increased joint strike fighter procurement over the levels requested in the budget. The House bill added 11 F-35s—five F-35As, four F-35Cs and two F-35Bs—numbers that would satisfy the services’ “unfunded priorities” list. The Senate took a different tactic, opting instead to augment procurement by adding two more F-35Bs and two F-35Cs in 2017 while also increasing F-35A advance procurement by $100 million, a move that allows the Air Force to increase its production rate in 2018.
The 70 bipartisan signatories want the best of both worlds — for appropriators in conference to add 11 F-35s to the budget while also raising advance procurement. The lawmakers also recommended that appropriators reverse cuts to the F-35’s Block 4 modernization program included in the Senate bill.
“Increasing the production rate is the single most important factor in reducing future aircraft unit costs,” they said in the letter. “Additionally, significantly increasing production is critical to fielding F-35s in the numbers needed to meet the expected threats in the mid-2020s.”
The letter was initiated by the co-chairs of the House Joint Strike Fighter Caucus, Reps. Kay Granger, R-Texas, and John Larson, D-Conn. Both lawmakers represent regions that profit from the F-35, with the Lockheed Martin jet built in Fort Worth and the Pratt & Whitney F135 engine made in Connecticut.
The signatories argued that the services require the F-35 at a quicker rate than current budgets allow.
“Events around the globe continue to demonstrate the urgent need for the F-35’s capabilities,” they wrote. “The program is gaining momentum with the Marine Corps declaring initial operating capability last year and the Air Force declaring IOC this summer. We believe it is essential for Congress to provide the funding necessary to continue increasing F-35 production at a rate sufficient to meet future threats and to reach at least 120 US aircraft per year as quickly as possible.”
As Congress debates how quickly to ramp up F-35 production, the government and Lockheed Martin remain gridlocked on the price of the ninth and tenth lots of aircraft. Lockheed on Monday received a $743 million award, which modifies a previous undefinitized contracting action for the ninth batch of low-rate initial production aircraft. Besides providing additional advance funding to the company, the agreement also establishes not-to-exceed prices "for diminishing manufacturing and material shortages redesign and development, estimated post production concurrency changes, and country-unique requirements." However, a larger agreement on the production of LRIP-9 and -10 is still in the works.
... and I can't see the rest of the article, as my trial access to AviationWeek has expiredRemember JPALS? Development of the military GPS-based Joint Precision Approach and Landing System began back in 1998, and the program suffered a so-called Nunn-McCurdy cost breach in 2014 after all, but the U.S. Navy pulled out of the once-joint effort. Therefore, making the assumption that the program had died is not unreasonable. But Raytheon now has a $255 million Navy contract to complete development of JPALS and support early operational capability in 2018 on one aircraft ...
source:
according to DodBuzz Grounded F-35As Expected to Fly Again Soon
source:F-35s grounded over an internal debris issue should be up and running again soon, with a few likely ready to fly before the end of this month.
The Joint Program Office on Thursday said modifications to four of the aircraft , “and the work takes about three weeks to complete.”
The service on Sept. 16 of 13 out of 104 F-35s in the fleet “due to the discovery of peeling and crumbling insulation in avionics cooling lines inside the fuel tanks,” according to a statement at the time. Two additional aircraft, belonging to Norway and stationed at , were also affected.
“Rapid progress is being made in fixing 15 operational F-35A aircraft needing modifications to repair non-compliant Polyalphaolefin (PAO) coolant tubes,” Joe DellaVedova, spokesman for the F-35 Joint Program Office, said in an email.
“All 15 aircraft are expected to fly again by the end of the year,” he said. “At the same time, modification work is progressing on 42 production aircraft in assembly. Lockheed Martin expects to start delivering these aircraft in December. These first deliveries include jets from Israel and Japan, these nation’s first deliveries.”
Officials describe the Joint Strike Fighter program a global initiative, with more than eight partner countries acquiring the plane.
On Wednesday, the it expects its two affected aircraft in the air by the end of November.
DellaVedova said engineering teams from the Joint Program Office and the aircraft’s manufacturer, Lockheed Martin Corp., quickly developed solutions to fix all F-35As affected by the non-conforming coolant tubes.
“This was not a technical or design issue; it was a supply chain manufacturing quality issue,” he said. “The debris came from the non-compliant PAO tubes.”
Gen. Herbert “Hawk” Carlisle, commander of Air Combat Command, took aim at the aircraft’s critics during the Air Force Association’s annual Air, Space & Cyber conference when he said there are people “who will make comments, but will never actually have to do anything.”
This “is not a design problem … it’s not a developmental problem,” Carlisle told reporters at the time. “It is a subcontractor that failed to perform to standards.”
He said the flaw “is very contained.”
Neither Carlisle nor Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan, executive officer for the Joint Program Office, would comment last month on which contractor supplied the coolant lines, but Bogdan said the service will use the same company going forward.
related:... anyway House Lawmakers Push for More F-35 Funding in FY17 Budget
source is DefenseNews
source:A bipartisan group of 70 lawmakers is seeking to increase the F-35 production rate in Fiscal 2017. “We believe it is essential for Congress to provide the funding necessary to continue increasing F-35 production at a rate sufficient to meet future threats and to reach full rate production of at least 120 US aircraft per year as quickly as possible,” the House members wrote in an Oct. 4 to the leading members of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee. In its , the Air Force sought $691 million to buy the five F-35As that were request. The House’s would funding for an additional 11 F-35s for the services, including the service-requested five F-35As. But the Senate’s version, which , would only provide the Air Force with an additional $100 million for advance procurement for the F-35As while providing funding for the Navy and Marine Corps to buy four more F-35s. In the letter, the lawmakers suggested HAC-D Chairman Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.) and Ranking Member Rep. Rep. Peter Visclosky (D-Ind.) push for the additional $100 million for the Air Force so it can increase its ramp rate in Fiscal 2018 and the funding for the additional 11 aircraft while negotiating with the Senate on a joint bill. Increasing the production rate, the lawmakers argued, will reduce future aircraft unit costs. They also suggested restoring follow on-modernization funds cut by the Senate’s version. At the Air Force Association’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference in September, Air Combat Command chief Gen. Hawk Carlisle, he sees of the F-35s as high as possible as the most important part of the program so the service .
insideJOINT STRIKE FIGHTER [JSF]
Joint Strike Fighter [JSF] Production.--The fiscal year
2017 budget request includes 63 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, six
fewer than were provided in the Department of Defense
Appropriations Act, 2016 (Public Law 114-113). In comparison to
quantities planned in the fiscal year 2016 budget request, the
Air Force's fiscal year 2017 request includes five fewer
aircraft in fiscal year 2017 and 45 fewer aircraft from fiscal
years 2017 to 2021. The Committee is concerned that the current
programmed quantities will not support the fielding of F-35
squadrons, as initially planned. As a result, the Committee
recommends an additional $100,000,000 in advance procurement
for the F-35A and encourages the Air Force to revisit F-35A
procurement quantities in the fiscal year 2018 budget request.
The Committee notes that the Navy continues to delay
previously planned production increases of the F-35C carrier
variant and has budgeted for no more than four F-35C aircraft
since fiscal year 2014, even though prior budget requests
planned for more aircraft. The fiscal year 2017 budget request
again includes only four F-35Cs, two fewer than were provided
in the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2016 (Public
Law 114-113). The Committee notes that it is challenging to
efficiently manufacture a small number of F-35C aircraft on the
same production line as the F-35A and F-35B aircraft, given the
unique items associated with the carrier variant. Therefore,
the Committee encourages the Navy to maintain, at a minimum,
the current procurement plan in the fiscal year 2018 budget
request.
The Committee notes that the Marine Corps has maintained a
consistent funding profile for the F-35B variant over recent
years. To support the Marine Corps initial operational
capability and enable the transition from 4th generation
fighters, the Committee recommends additional funding for two
Marine Corps F-35B and two Marine Corps F-35C aircraft.
Finally, the Committee understands that the Joint Strike
Fighter Program Executive Officer is considering formally
requesting JSF block buy authority from the congressional
defense committees. The Committee notes that block buy
authority differs from multi-year procurement authority. The
Committee supports acquisition cost savings, however, there is
concern that the Department of Defense has not completed a
formal review of such a strategy. Therefore, the Committee
encourages the Under Secretary of Defense (Acquisition,
Technology, Logistics) to review a block buy strategy prior to
the submission of such a request to the congressional defense
committees.
Joint Strike Fighter Follow-on Modernization [JSF FoM].--
The fiscal year 2017 budget request includes $264,900,000 in
Research, Development, Test and Evaluation, Navy and Research,
Development, Test and Evaluation, Air Force for Joint Strike
Fighter Follow-on Modernization, an increase of $173,900,000
above fiscal year 2016 enacted amounts. The Committee notes the
progress made by the JSF Program Executive Officer to define
initial requirements and refine the JSF FoM acquisition
strategy. However, the Committee further notes that cost
estimates for the first two JSF FoM sub-blocks exceed
$2,000,000,000, and that requirements and costs for the
subsequent two JSF FoM sub-blocks are yet to be determined. In
addition, the Committee notes that the JSF FoM acquisition
strategy, the test and evaluation master plan, the contracting
strategy, and the plan for management of infrastructure remain
to be approved. Finally, the Committee notes that of funds
requested for JSF FoM in fiscal year 2017, $158,900,000 is
planned for obligation after the first quarter of fiscal year
2018. Therefore, the Committee recommends $106,000,000 for JSF
FoM, an increase of $15,000,000 above fiscal year 2016 enacted
amounts, and the amount executable in fiscal year 2017. The JSF
Program Executive Officer is directed to provide to the
congressional defense committees, not later than the fiscal
year 2018 budget submission, the approved JSF FoM acquisition
strategy, and, for each JSF FoM sub-block, the systems
engineering plan, the test and evaluation master plan,
independent cost estimates, and an acquisition program
baseline.
source:Perhaps the best-kept secret of the top-secret program is that it might be the best airplane of its kind in the world -- and that it will likely change the way America fight its wars.
Plagued by cost overruns, mechanical gremlins and fears that its high-tech sensors would overload a human pilot's ability to analyze the aerial battlefield, the $379 billion project for the , and infamously became known in the Pentagon as "acquisition malpractice."
With mounting delays in getting these fighters to the fleet, the Navy is scrambling to revamp its aging , pushing them far beyond their anticipated service lives. To keep the Marines' , the Corps bought scrapped British jets to cannibalize for parts.
But two F-35 squadrons at the , are now classified as "operational."
The Green Knights of Fighter Squadron 121 are set to deploy to Japan in January and the Wake Avengers of Squadron 211 are slated for sea duty near the Middle East in 2018.
"There's no other plane in the world I'd rather fly into combat, no other plane in the world," said the 211 squadron's commander, Lt. Col. Chad "Mo" Vaughn.
The 41-year-old native of Virginia recently received his tenth F-35B fighter, an aircraft that can take off and land vertically on the battlefield, and will get an additional six before his squadron deploys.
In talking with Marine pilots like Vaughn, a picture of how radically the F-35 could reshape aerial warfare emerges.
The jet's vast and swift computing power, advanced battlefield sensors, stubby but stealthy profile and precision bombs and missiles allow it to survive far behind enemy lines, even above dense arrays of foes' most advanced anti-aircraft missile batteries.
Attacking like a marauding linebacker in the enemy's backfield, the F-35 also will become coach and quarterback, telling older legacy aircraft -- like the F-18 Hornets -- and new robotic drones where to strike and what spots on the battlefield to avoid.
"I'd say that's the coolest part of the job. It's unlocking the capabilities of the airplane," said Maj. Alexander "Oprah" Mellman, 34.
The San Franciscan, who's part of a digital generation that grew up in front of a computer screen or with a smartphone in his hand, said new technology never wows him -- unless he's in the F-35 cockpit.
"There's a lot of information coming at you, but that's the beauty of this aircraft -- the fusion," said his boss, Vaughn. "Those sensors are doing a lot of the work for you. They're literally just showing you the information. You're not working the sensors very much. You're just looking at the output of the sensors. It allows you to be a tactician."
The Joint Strike Fighter's comparative invisibility, sensors and computing power give it an unchallenged "first shot" capability. Instead of waging a war of attrition in the skies between American "fourth-generation" fighters such as the Hornet and the Russian-built Flankers, F-35s can see and kill an enemy fighter, radar site or missile battery before it's detected.
That's why Mellman said the Marines spend a lot of time learning to win dogfights before they start, destroying enemies "chiefly beyond visual range."
"We're only beginning to scratch the surface. Yuma is pretty far along in changing tactics to meet what this plane can do," said John "JV" Venable, a defense analyst at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C.
A retired Air Force colonel who flew the and commanded the Thunderbirds aerial acrobat team, Venable is conducting an ongoing survey of F-35 pilots in his former service and the Marine Corps.
He has done 40 interviews, and the pilots overwhelmingly favor the Joint Strike Fighter.
But critics disagree with the rosy assessments.
Dan Grazier, a former Marine tank officer and now a defense analyst at the D.C.-based Program on Government Oversight, is "not a big fan of the F-35" partly because its "actual usefulness in combat hasn't been demonstrated." Key reasons for this absence of operational proof are recurring software glitches, engine snafus and safety worries.
Grazier said some pilots he has interviewed dislike the F-35, citing its meager bomb payload -- a pair of half-ton munitions-- and its lack of a high cockpit canopy, which could limit their ability to see the enemy during dogfights.
But the most persistent criticism The San Diego Union-Tribune has heard about the F-35 has been its expense.
"Here's the problem: You have replacement airplanes that now cost a lot more money than originally intended. Because they're behind schedule, you have rising costs for maintaining and operating the older aircraft. At some point, those costs start eating into the budget to replace the airplanes in the first place," said James Hasik, a former Navy aviator and currently the senior fellow for defense at the Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security at the Atlantic Council, a D.C. think tank.
"You have the Pentagon saying that the U.S. military will buy all 2,400 or so Joint Strike Fighters, but you begin to suspect that it'll be much lower, that you won't be able to fly all of them because of the money you're losing now and the escalating procurement costs," he added.
The Navy plans to purchase 260 F-35Cs that can operate from aircraft carriers. The price tag for those being delivered today is about $115.7 million each, not including the engine.
About three years behind schedule, each F-35B arriving at the Marine base in Yuma costs $102 million. The Corps intends to buy 353 of them, plus 67 F-35Cs, and the last of them won't roll off the assembly line until 2031.
Grazier at the Program on Government Oversight said a hidden expense is the $1.1 trillion the Pentagon estimates will be spent maintaining the aircraft.
"What you're going to find is that the contractors working on the F-35 program are going to make their money on the back end, through support," Grazier said. "This problem is exacerbated by a 'revolving door' from the Pentagon to the contractors. They set themselves up for lucrative jobs post-retirement from the military."
However, former Harrier mechanic Staff Sgt. Derek W. Hockgeiger said Yuma's F-35s are so far "a lot easier to work on." He pointed to a complicated chore like removing a strike fighter's engine. It takes "about a shift" to complete -- half the time a Harrier demanded.
"It's interesting. It's a flying computer. It's very intelligent. It's very autonomous," said Hockgeiger, 29, from Indiana.
But the F-35 might be nowhere near as brainy and self-reliant as the sixth-generation fighter for the Air Force and Navy, which is on the drawing boards now. Scheduled to replace the F-35 about two decades from now, this future jet might fire lasers or wield microwave weapons while flying at rocket-like speeds.
If departing Navy Secretary Raymond "Ray" Mabus has his way, it won't follow the F-35's joint procurement plan -- or even carry a human pilot.
The future, he said, might be closer to the Navy's MQ-25A Stingray carrier-based drone.
"Right now, we use four fighters out of every fighter squadron on a carrier to refuel. That's all they do. They're gas trucks. We're going to use (the Stingray) as a refueling aircraft and then, as time goes by, add capabilities to where you finally get a full-up strike fighter that's unmanned and can go into denied airspace," Mabus said.
And it won't be the only unmanned weapons the Navy uses.
Mabus envisions aircraft-carrier workshops churning out flocks of fist-sized mini-drones on 3-D printers, then launching them at the enemy to perform missions the F-35 is expected to do.
"They cost a couple of a hundred bucks apiece. If you get into a fight, you send out a couple thousand of them and they don't come back but they set up a network," he said. "They can be offensive or defensive. They can jam (enemy communications) and protect your networks. They can open paths for aircraft and missiles coming through."
For the moment, Mabus and the Marines are speeding up orders for the Joint Strike Fighter before the Hornets and Harriers wear out completely.
"What we need now is to get more of these (F-35) aircraft as quickly as we can so that we can get those legacy aircraft out of the fight and get their pilots retrained (to) fly the F-35s as soon as possible," said Vaughn the squadron commander in Yuma.
nowmore on F-35 CAS:
F-35 Will Not Reach Full Close-Air-Support Potential Until 2022
source:
source (dated Oct 24, 2016):Despite the U.S. Air Force’s stated plan to begin mothballing the A-10 Warthog next year, the service’s depots are ramping up capacity to keep the aging attack fleet operating well into the future, according to a top general.
“They have re-geared up, we’ve turned on the depot line, we’re building it back up in capacity and supply chain,” said Air Force Materiel Command chief Gen. Ellen Pawlikowski in an Oct. 24 interview. “Our command, anyway, is approaching this as another airplane that we are sustaining indefinitely.”
Beloved by troops for the roar of its Gatling gun, the A-10 is the Air Force’s only asset designed solely for protecting soldiers on the ground. The service has been trying to sunset the Warthog for years so it can move resources to standing up the fifth-generation . But each year the Air Force has caved to pressure from Congress and the public and postponed the fleet’s retirement date, most recently citing the A-10’s critical role in the campaign against Islamic State terrorists in Iraq and Syria. This cycle is not likely to let up any time soon, and the prospect of a new administration next year lends even more uncertainty to the A-10’s fate.
Pawlikowski is not taking any chances. As Air Force leadership and Congress hash out the details of the divestment plan, AFMC has begun rebuilding depot line capacity and the supply chain to accept more A-10 sustainment throughput, Pawlikowski told Aviation Week in an Oct. 24 interview.
“My approach from a sustainment perspective is to approach this as if we’re just going to continue to keep these airplanes operating.” Pawlikowski said. “We will wait as the dust settles as far as what the strategy will be; that discussion continues to go on and I think it always will as we look at the fact that our demand signal for our airplanes continues to be high.”
The latest budget blueprint has the Air Force beginning to stand down Warthog squadrons in fiscal 2018, with the last aircraft heading to the boneyard in the early 2020s. But the Air Force recently signaled it may once again postpone plans to sunset the A-10, with Secretary Deborah Lee James telling Aviation Week in a recent interview that the air arm is considering keeping the jets in inventory longer than planned.
If this happens, AFMC will be ready. The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center’s A-10 division at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, does most of the maintenance and repair work on the Air Force’s fleet of 283 A-10s, and has drastically improved sustainment over the last year, Pawlikowski said. The A-10s flew nearly 87,000 flight hours worldwide in fiscal 2015, at an aircraft availability rate of 67.9%—a 5% gain over the previous year.
Among other upgrades, the Air Force is currently rewinging the current fleet of Warthogs under a $2 billion contract awarded to in 2007 that was originally intended to keep the jets flying until 2028. The depots are seeing some corrosion in the fleet, but that is to be expected in all aging aircraft, Pawlikowski said.
Right now, the A-10’s fate hangs not just on the Air Force’s fiscal 2018 budget request, but also the final defense policy bill. Lawmakers have inserted a number of provisions into a draft version of the bill designed to keep the A-10 flying, most notably Arizona Republican Rep. Martha McSally’s provision to make retirement of the jet contingent on a flyoff with its slated replacement, the F-35.
However, given the November elections and looming administration turnover, the budget likely won’t be finalized until next year.
In the meantime, the Air Force also is looking at possibilities for the next generation of close-air support (CAS) aircraft as a whole. Top service officials are kicking around a plan to pursue not one but two new aircraft programs to augment and eventually replace the A-10. The controversial plan involves pursuing a low-end, light-attack “OA-X” to augment the A-10 in a CAS role in the short term, while simultaneously aiming for a more robust A-10 replacement that could operate in a more dangerous threat environment down the line.
“There is a discussion about what can we do to meet the capacity requirements that we have and whether a high-low mix, so to speak, might be a way to do that,” Pawlikowski said. “The big question is, is that really an effective way as we go in the future? The question becomes in the broader sense, where do we think the threat is going to be?”
The Air Force is looking at doing a series of “experiments” designed to help planners better understand what kind of mix of CAS platforms will be needed in the coming decades, Pawlikowski said. These experiments could include modeling, simulation and wargaming, or even a possible flight demonstration of existing, off-the-shelf aircraft, and could start as early as next spring.
The experiments are part of a larger Air Force effort to make informed decisions about several key replacement programs in the coming years, Pawlikowski said.
“The Air Force has been at war for a long time, and every time we think things are going to slow down for us something else happens,” Pawlikowski said. “We struggle with, how do we find that balance between modernization and the sustainment of what we have?”
now Lockheed CFO: No Agreement Yet on Price, Profit for F-35 Lots 9 and 10... related (dated 12:09 p.m. EDT July 9, 2016):
Program Head Hints F-35 Contract Could Be Announced at Farnborough
source:
source:A deal between Lockheed Martin and the Defense Department on the ninth and tenth lots of F-35s still appears to be elusive, as the organizations have not yet settled any one of the three “sticking points” mentioned by the company’s chief financial officer in a Tuesday earnings call.
F-35 manufacturer Lockheed had initially expected to cement a contract with the Pentagon for the ninth and tenth batches of low rate initial production (LRIP) F-35s early this year, but negotiations continue to stretch on as the parties continue to hammer out an agreement.
The three points of dispute between the company and the government are the same as any contractual negotiation: the cost of performing the contract, the terms and conditions associated with the deal, and the profit level for the contractor, said Bruce Tanner, Lockheed’s chief financial officer.
“I'd say we haven't really reached closure on any of those three,” he told investors in the third-quarter earnings call. “But we are making progress every day towards that closure. So we're still hopeful that we'll close soon."
Lockheed CEO Marillyn Hewson similarly characterized the negotiations as progressing, although neither she nor Tanner ventured a guess on when a final deal could be inked.
"This is a very large contract. It's the largest contract to date on the program, so there's a lot of data, there's a lot of work that has to happen in those types of negotiations,” she said. “Both parties want to get this contract right, so it takes time to do that, so I would say that we continue to make progress on it."
During the second-quarter earnings call several months ago, Tanner repeatedly expressed frustration at the slow pace of negotiations, which had left Lockheed paying for some of its suppliers’ costs on its own dime. The Pentagon has twice added funding to an existing undefinitized contracting action (UCA) — a stopgap measure used by the government to issue funds before a final deal is reached. In August, Defense News broke the news that the Defense Department had awarded about $1 billion to reimburse Lockheed for LRIP 9 and 10 costs, and this month another $743 million was added to the LRIP 9 undefinitized contracting action.
Lockheed executives struck a more restrained tone in Tuesday’s earnings call, with neither Hewson nor Tanner discussing the need for additional UCA funds. However, a Lockheed news release detailing third-quarter results revealed that the company continues to pay for some LRIP 9 and 10 costs out of pocket.
“Throughout the negotiation process, the corporation has incurred costs in excess of funds obligated and has provided multiple notifications to its customer that current funding is insufficient to cover the production process,” the company stated.
“Despite not yet receiving funding sufficient to cover its costs, the corporation continued work in an effort to meet the customer’s desired aircraft delivery dates,” the news release continued. “Currently, the corporation has approximately $950 million of potential cash exposure and $2.3 billion in termination liability exposure related to the F-35 LRIP 9 and 10 contracts.”
A month ago at the Air Force Association conference, F-35 Joint Program Executive Officer Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan said he expected to finalize the LRIP 9 and 10 contract by the end of the year. The deal, which would cover about 150 jets, has an estimated value of $14 billion, Bogdan has said.