Tag Archives: F-35

Greg Ulmer, executive vice president of Lockheed Martin’s aeronautics business, has said the U.S. Air Force could release a solicitation for logistics and sustainment support for F-35 aircraft this spring, Inside Defense reported Friday.

The U.S. Navy has awarded Raytheon Technologies a $49.2 million contract modification to provide F135 turbofan engines to support testing of an F-35 Lightning II aircraft iteration for the Department of Defense and non-DOD participants.

Northrop Grumman has been awarded a contract from Lockheed Martin to enable new functionality that supports the 5th Generation F-35 Lightning II multi-role fighter. BAE Systems is also part of the collaborative agreement. Northrop, Lockheed and BAE will equip the fighter jet with Northrop’s AN/ASQ-242 Integrated Communications, Navigation and Identification (ICNI) and BAE’s AN/ASQ-239 Electronic Warfare/Countermeasures (EW/CM) system to deliver optimal operational utility.

An industry team led by Lockheed Martin has secured a $1.28 billion undefinitized contract action (UCA) from the F-35 Joint Program Office to support operations and sustainment of the global F-35 fleet through June 30. "This contract ensures F-35s remain ready to fly and accomplish the warfighter's mission," said Bill Brotherton, Lockheed Martin F-35 program acting vice president and general manager.

The Department of Defense has indefinitely postponed a final determination to let the Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter aircraft move into the full production phase due to technical and pandemic challenges that have affected combat simulation test preparations, Bloomberg reported Thursday.

A conventional takeoff and landing variant of the F-35 multirole aircraft built by Lockheed Martin has achieved initial operational capability status from the government of Australia.

Lockheed Martin has shipped 123 F-35 aircraft in 2020, meeting its revised target number of at least 117 delivered jets amid the COVID-19 pandemic and corresponding delays. The company said Monday it delivered 74 units of the aircraft to the U.S. military, 18 to foreign military sales customers and 31 to international partners this year.

Luna Innovations has extended its aircraft support partnership with Lockheed Martin with a $6.2M agreement to help ensure the readiness of F-35 Lightning II aircraft units worldwide.

The U.S. Air Force and Kratos Defense and Security Solutions demonstrated the flight of an attritable XQ-58A Valkyrie unmanned aircraft system designed to require fewer maintenance costs compared to other models. The fifth demonstration of the Kratos-made aircraft took place at Arizona-based Yuma Proving Ground on Dec. 9 with Air Force Research Laboratory under the attritableONE program, Robins Air Force Base said Tuesday.

The U.S. government has submitted its Lockheed Martin-built F-35 aircraft package proposal to Switzerland as part of the European nation’s New Fighter Aircraft program.

Cubic's mission and performance solutions business has received an $8.5M task order to mature core architectures of a training system designed for the U.S. Navy's F/A-18 and EA-18G aircraft programs.

The U.S. Air Force has authorized a Raytheon Technologies-built “smart” weapon for fielding on Air Combat Command's F-15E Strike Eagle aircraft following a recent test at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. The StormBreaker munition uses a multimode seeker technology with infrared, semi-active laser and millimeter wave radar guidance technologies that can work alongside GPS and inertial navigation systems to reach targets over 40 miles away from the aircraft, the company said Tuesday.

The U.S. Marine Corps has conducted an exercise at USMC Air Station in Yuma, Arizona, to test a Lockheed Martin-built prototype system for managing F-35 logistics and sustainment operations.

LMI and The Climate Service predict that the U.S. military's current F-35 support infrastructure could experience significant disruption from extreme temperature, storm damage and coastal flooding events over the next three decades.

Michele Evans, executive vice president of Lockheed Martin's aeronautics segment and 2020 Wash100 awardee, does not consider the U.S. Air Force's move to replace aging F-15 jets with a modernized derivative from Boeing as a potential threat to the F-35 mission capability, Defense One reported Friday.