F-35 Joint Strike Fighter News, Videos and pics Thread

[Jura The idiot]

...
now Lockheed CFO: No Agreement Yet on Price, Profit for F-35 Lots 9 and 10

source:

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

and here's the story based on the point of view of the Pentagon:
Pentagon Is Expected to Split Lockheed’s Next F-35 Order
Defense Department may first award deal for ninth batch of jets

The U.S. Defense Department said it may split a $14 billion order for the next two batches of F-35 combat jets after failing to reach agreement on a single deal with lead contractor

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Corp.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Lockheed has been in talks with the Pentagon for months about a combined deal for 160 jets covering two years of production, and the two sides had hoped to reach agreement in early 2016.

But negotiations over price and other issues have dragged on longer than expected as the Pentagon tries to cut the cost of the F-35A model used by the U.S. Air Force to around $80 million by the end of the decade.

The F-35 program office said it may now award a deal first on the smaller ninth batch of jets, which involves more than 63 planes, rather than combine it with a 10th batch.

Negotiating F-35 deals in bigger batches was intended to cut the Pentagon’s price and help Lockheed and its partners negotiate better deals with their suppliers, but

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

.

The F-35 accounts for about 20% of Lockheed’s revenue and is an important contributor to sales and earnings at others including

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Corp. and

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

PLC, as well as dozens of smaller contractors.

Analysts are closely watching pricing on the next two batches of jets as the F-35 currently generates lower margins than Lockheed’s other planes.

The Pentagon paid Lockheed almost $1 billion in August to cover supplier costs on the ninth batch and is in talks about another payment to help fund the 10th, according to the program office.

Lockheed declined to comment on talks with the Pentagon but said in its updated guidance released with

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Tuesday that its forecasts for 2016 and 2017 hinge on when it secures the next two F-35 deals.

Third-quarter profit roundly beat analysts’ expectations and the company boosted 2016 sales guidance and forecast revenue would rise another 7% next year to almost $50 billion.

Lockheed reported a quarterly profit of $2.4 billion compared with $865 million a year earlier as per-share earnings rose to $7.93 from $2.77 share. Revenue climbed 15% to $11.55 billion. For the full year, it expects earnings of about $12.10 a share on revenue of $46.5 billion. It previously forecast $11.15 to $11.45 a share on $45 billion to $46.2 billion in sales.

source:

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

 

[Jura The idiot]

according to DODBuzz New System Will Allow Ospreys to Refuel F-35s in Flight

The British manufacturing company Cobham has been contracted to develop a system that will allows the Marines MV-22B Osprey to conduct in-flight refueling of other aircraft, notably the new F-35B Joint Strike Fighter.

Cobham announced Tuesday it had been awarded a contract from the Bell-Boeing Joint Project Office to develop a “roll-on/roll-off” palletized refueling system, know as the V-22 Aerial Refueling System, or VARS. VARS will be based on Cobham’s existing FR-300 hose drum unit, used by the KC-130 for in-air refueling of other aircraft. With the system, according to a news release, the Osprey can conduct mid-air refuelings of the F-35 and the F/A-18 Hornet, from land or from off an aircraft carrier.

This, the release notes, will extend the fighter aircrafts’ operational range and loiter times.

“With VARS we continue the tradition of providing industry leading aerial refueling capability to war fighters, Kevin McKeown, vice president and general manager of Cobham said in a statement. “This program will enable the Marines to extend the flying range of their fighter aircraft and allow for efficient shipboard operations.”

The refueling system will be developed at Cobham’s Mission Systems facility in Davenport, Iowa, according to the release. After testing, the first VARS kits will be delivered in 2018.

Adding mid-air refueling as a capability to the Osprey has long been a goal of Marine Corps aviation leaders. The

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

calls aerial refueling a future MV-22 mission set, and states that the aircraft will eventually be able to conduct mid-air refueling for other tiltrotor aircraft and helicopters as well as fixed-wing fighters.

The plan also states that a fully capable VARS will be fielded in Fiscal 19.

“This system will be able to refuel all [Marine air-ground task force] aerial refuel capable aircraft with approximately 10,000 pounds per VARS-equipped V-22,” the document says.

source:

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

 

[Jura The idiot]

Yesterday at 5:48 AM

the hype from this summer:
Jul 9, 2016

now Lockheed CFO: No Agreement Yet on Price, Profit for F-35 Lots 9 and 10

source:

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Yesterday at 6:11 AM

and here's the story based on the point of view of the Pentagon:
Pentagon Is Expected to Split Lockheed’s Next F-35 Order
Defense Department may first award deal for ninth batch of jets

source:

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

while (also from yesterday: 26 October, 2016) F-35 supplier deal suggests Lockheed close on LRIP 9/10 contract

Northrop Grumman has completed negotiations with Lockheed Martin on pricing for low-rate initial production (LRIP) lots 9 and 10 of the F-35, suggesting the prime contractor may be close to wrapping up a 15-month negotiating period with the US joint programme office (JPO), Northrop chief executive Wes Bush says.

Northrop’s supplier deal precedes the resolution of the LRIP 9/10 contract between Lockheed as the prime contractor and the JPO, Bush adds.

“We have completed our negotiations on lots 9 and 10 with Lockheed, which is typical for a prime contractor to want to lock down its supply chain as it finishes off negotiations with a customer,” Bush told analysts on a third quarter earnings call on 26 October.

The JPO confirms that negotiations remain ongoing with Lockheed, but offers no comment on whether they are close to reaching a conclusion. Lockheed also says discussions are continuing with the JPO.

As the first two-year block buy, Lockheed’s part of the LRIP 9/10 deal should have been signed last November to keep the contractual terms roughly up to date, but undisclosed disagreements have extended the talks.

Lockheed was forced to spend more than $900 million of internal funds upfront on LRIP 9 aircraft in final assembly, but the JPO reimbursed the money in August to keep the pace of F-35 deliveries on track while discussions on the final terms of the production contract continued.

Bush acknowledged some impatience with the progress of the LRIP 9/10 negotiations. “We’ve seen the negotiations take longer than anyone would want,” he says. “There’s opportunities here for process improvement as we go forward."

Aside from Lockheed and engine supplier Pratt & Whitney, Northrop has probably the biggest stake in the F-35 programme. The company’s Aerospace Systems sector supplies the center fuselage and the Missions Systems sector provides the radar, distributed aperture system and the communications/navigation/identification friend-or-foe (CNI) suite. The F-35 represents 7% of the company’s revenues, with two-thirds of the amount coming from the fuselage portion, Bush says.

But Northrop has not been satisfied with the programme’s contributions to the bottom line, so far. Operating margins on Northrop’s F-35 deliveries are below where the company would normally expect for a programme at this stage in the production cycle, Bush says. The terms of the newly-signed LRIP 9/10 deal with Lockheed do not significantly improve upon that performance, he adds.

Northrop expects profits on the F-35 programme to improve as full rate production begins in a few years, implying significantly higher volumes that allow suppliers to build parts more efficiently, he says.

source:

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

 

[Jura The idiot]

Sep 10, 2016

well the setup is perfect on the side of the vendor:

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

What this means, in the final analysis, is that the US military, as well as foreign operators of the F-35, will have to pay whatever Lockheed and Pratt & Whitney decide to charge to maintain, upgrade and modify the aircraft.
Although not mentioned in this article, Lockheed also owns all the IP rights for the Autonomic Logistic Information System (ALIS), which controls all F-35 operations and without access to which the F-35 can neither operate nor be maintained.
ALIS can also prevent aircraft from taking off, as was shown by malfunctions during its initial operations.
So all aspects of F-35 operations will be subject to industry control, including the fact that Lockheed can even ground aircraft fleets at will.
This is catastrophic news for the national sovereignty of the countries that will operate the F-35.
It is also catastrophic news for their defense budgets because, again, Lockheed and Pratt can charge whatever they like to allow F-35s to operate and be maintained.
This is something that may, hopefully, shake politicians out of their pro-F-35 complacency, and show that the F-35 hold many more risks and dangers than its well-documented technical shortcomings and ballooning costs.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

...

... related:
New F-35 software could quell ALIS sovereignty concerns

Lockheed Martin will begin studying options for adding a software filter to the system that tracks maintenance and training data for the F-35 fighter as part of an effort to limit the amount of data that gets shared with US-based contractors over concerns about privacy and sovereignty.

The US government intends to award a sole source contract to F-35 prime Lockheed to conduct a trade study for connecting a "sovereign data gateway" (SDG) to the autonomic logistics information system (ALIS), according to a 17 October Federal Business Opportunities website announcement.

Lockheed's ALIS is programmed to keep track of thousands of operational details about the F-35 fleet, including data from health monitoring systems on board the aircraft as well as the training and flight logs for each of the pilots. As the global data hub, ALIS is supposed to order parts and schedule training as they are needed, saving operators the burden of managing and back-filling spare inventories. For the system to work, the jet must automatically transmit information after and even during each flight by an F-35 to Lockheed's ALIS hub in Fort Worth, Texas.

But that automated stream of data also worries some of the F-35's international customers.

To address those concerns, the SDG software will remain within the partner country’s central point of entry and will control the flow of data to the Autonomic Logistics Operating Unit (ALOU), the F-35 Joint Programme Office says in an emailed response to questions.

The software will allow each partner country to inspect and verify data flowing to and from the US hub, the JPO stays. The software will also be able to block, modify or delay sensitive data. One example of sensitive data are details in the pilot's training and flight records, which in some countries are protected by privacy laws.

“Most partners have this inspection requirement as a prerequisite to their own certification and approval of ALIS on their national networks,” he says. “An example of SDG's use could be to enforce regulations in place to protect data containing personally identifiable information, which in some cases is subject to national privacy legislation.”

source is FlightGlobal

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

 

[JudgeKing]

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

TORONTO — Magellan Aerospace will be producing F-35 Lightning II horizontal tail assemblies under an agreement with BAE Systems, Magellan announced in an Oct. 27 release. The agreement is the continuation of annual contract awards made to Magellan by BAE Systems for F-35 assemblies, valued at more than $52 million over a two-year period.

Magellan and BAE Systems have been working together to produce horizontal tails for the global F-35 program for almost a decade. Both companies have since made significant investment in the facilities, technologies and training to ensure the successful delivery of these flight-critical assemblies to the customer.

The horizontal tail assemblies produced at Magellan will be used on the Conventional Takeoff-and-Landing (CTOL) variant of the F-35. At present, Magellan plans to produce more than 1,000 shipsets of horizontal tail assemblies over the life of the F-35 program.

“This contract represents significant quantities of horizontal tails awarded to Magellan in the ramping-up to full-scale production,” said Phillip Underwood, Magellan’s president and chief executive officer. “The ability to meet the increased annual volumes is an essential element of achieving F-35 program objectives in support of our customer’s global obligations,” Magellan will be producing approximately half of the CTOL horizontal tails required each year.”

“Magellan’s projected total revenues for the F-35 program could reach 2 billion [Canadian dollars, or $1.49 billion] based on the current anticipated aircraft requirements,” said Scott McCrady, Magellan’s corporate F-35 program director. “We are seeing significant increases in annual program quantities from both the U.S. DoD and the international partners.”

The program could produce up to 4,000 F-35 fighters globally.

 

[Jura The idiot]

inside:

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

“Magellan’s projected total revenues for the F-35 program could reach 2 billion [Canadian dollars, or $1.49 billion] based on the current anticipated aircraft requirements,” said Scott McCrady, Magellan’s corporate F-35 program director.

Dear Director:

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

LOLOL anyway I'm relieved, after sixteen posts in a row in a sticky thread (I wouldn't have thought this would ever happen)

 

[Jura The idiot]

interestingly Turkey to Order New F-35 Lightning II Jets

Turkey’s top defense procurement panel has agreed to officially order a second batch of F-35 Lightning II fifth-generation multirole fighter aircraft under the multinational Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program.

Friday's meeting of the Defense Industry Executive Committee (SSIK in its Turkish acronym) brought together Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, Defence Minister Fikri Isik and Army Gen. Hulusi Akar, chief of the General Staff. SSIK is Turkey’s top authority in procurement matters.

Under the JSF program, Turkey has committed to procure a total of 116 aircraft. Turkey placed its first JSF order in 2014 under its low-rate initial production 10 program.

Turkey’s procurement and military officials are hoping to build a new-generation, dual-fighter jet fleet by their country’s centennial, 2023, comprising of the F-35 and an indigenous aircraft, known as TFX, that Ankara has been designing. Turkey hopes to receive its first F-35 in 2018.

SSIK said in a news release after the meeting that panel members discussed a total of 12 different programs, including JSF.

One program discussed at the meeting is a plan for the procurement of two command and control aircraft. Earlier this year, Turkey’s procurement agency, the Undersecretariat for Defense Industries (SSM in its Turkish acronym) launched an international competition for the program. SSM said the planned aircraft should accommodate 12 passengers.

Aerospace industry sources expect the price tag with the contract to be anywhere between $50 million and $100 million, depending on the Turkish military's configuration requirement. The planned aircraft will be used as VIP business jets for the Turkish military, with command and control capabilities for the top military brass.

In 2006, the Turkish military selected Gulfstream G550 for the same mission. In 2008, it decided to buy two G550 aircraft.

At the Friday meeting, SSIK decided to task THY Teknik, the repair and maintenance subsidiary of Turkey’s national carrier, Turkish Airlines, with administering the command and control aircraft program.

SSIK also said it decided to procure more vessels for the Turkish navy, although it did not detail the number or type of ships on its shopping list.

The panel said it authorized SSM to launch a contest for the modernization of a batch of 25 Seahawk helicopters in the Navy’s inventory. In November 2006, Turkey ordered its last package of S-70B Seahawk helicopters from Sikorsky Aircraft. The S-70B helicopter is an international derivative of the US Navy's SH-60B Seahawk, but includes a fully integrated glass (digital) cockpit and a mission management system.

SSIK said some of the other programs its members discussed on Friday include the Integrated Maritime Surveillance System (IMSS) program; the foundation of a cybersecurity and defense center; electronic warfare command, control and coordination efforts; a national joint electronic warfare data bank; new-generation light-armored vehicles; procurement of portable jammers; and electronic support systems.

One procurement official said the meeting marked the first serious effort to give pace to Turkey’s modernization and acquisition programs after a putsch on July 15 brought the procurement and military bureaucracy to a near standstill.

“Finally the shock is over and things are picking up,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “SSIK convened with a heavy agenda and both the government and military leaders look determined to get things done without further delays.”

One Defence Ministry official said: “The first [post-coup attempt] meeting was important. Preceding meetings will discuss other major programs, including TFX.”

source:

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

 

[FORBIN]

interestingly Turkey to Order New F-35 Lightning II Jets

source:

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Again a country where he replace F-4 Japan, South Korea and Turkey.
Also Greece have F-4 and Iran but i don' t think possible LOL

 

[Jura The idiot]

in case you didn't know F-35B Lightning II Aircraft land aboard USS America for Developmental Test Phase III

Five Lockheed Martin F-35B Lightning IIs landed on the amphibious assault ship USS America (LHA 6) on Friday, October 28, off the coast of southern California.

America will embark seven F-35Bs; of which two are scheduled to begin the F-35B’s third shipboard phase of developmental test (DT-III) and five are scheduled to conduct operational testing.

America, the first ship of its class, is capable of accommodating F-35Bs, MV-22B Osprey tiltrotor aircraft, and a complement of Navy and Marine Corps helicopters.

The third test phase will evaluate F-35B Short Take-off Vertical Landing (STOVL) operations in a high-sea state, shipboard landings, and night operations. The cadre of flight test pilots, engineers, maintainers, and support personnel from the F-35 Patuxent River Integrated Test Force (ITF) are assigned to Air Test & Evaluation Squadron (VX) 23 at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland.

VMX-1 (Marine Operational Test and Evaluation Squadron 1) pilot Lt Col Tom ‘Sally’ Fields, F-35 Patuxent River ITF Government Flight Test director assigned to VX-23 said: ‘During the next three weeks, we will be completing critical flight test for both Developmental Test (DT) and Operational Test (OT). The F-35 Pax River ITF and VX-23 will be conducting DT work that will establish the boundaries of safe operation for the F-35B in the 3F configuration. VMX-1 will be conducting OT operations focused on preparing maintenance crews and pilots for the first deployment of the F-35B aboard USS Wasp (LHD 1), scheduled to start in just over a year.’

The operational testing will also include simulating extensive maintenance aboard a ship, said Col George Rowell, commanding officer of VMX-1, based at MCAS Yuma, Arizona.
Rowell stated one of the VMX jets on board will be placed in the hangar bay, taken apart, and put together again, just to make sure everything goes well.

source:

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

 

[FORBIN]

in case you didn't know F-35B Lightning II Aircraft land aboard USS America for Developmental Test Phase III

source:

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Yes i know coz i read Popeye posts...