Lockheed Martin Aeronautics has secured a $920m contract from the US Department of Defense to purchase materials, parts, components for the manufacture and delivery of 94 F-35 Lightning II low rate initial production aircraft.
The order for 94 F-35 fighter jets include 78 F-35A aircraft for the US Air Force, Italy, Turkey, Australia, and Norway, as well as for various other foreign military sales customers.
The order also includes the delivery of 14 F-35B aircraft to the US Marine Corps and Italy, as well as two F-35C aircraft for the US Navy and Marine Corps.
Work under this project will be performed facilities in US, UK and Italy and scheduled to be completed in May 2019.
The F-35 is currently under development in three versions. It is a fifth-generation multi-role fighter aircraft designed to conduct an array of ground attack, reconnaissance and air defence missions with stealth capability. The aircraft is expected to achieve full operational capability with the air force by 2021 or 2022.
The Lockheed Martin team for this project includes Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems, Pratt and Whitney and Rolls-Royce.
In April, Lockheed Martin selected Splunk to support its F-35 Lightning II joint strike fighter (JSF) programme.
Under the contract, the company will provide its Splunk Enterprise to monitor and analyse IT systems and network behaviour for the autonomic logistics information system (ALIS), which provides F-35 operators with the ability to plan ahead, maintain, and sustain the jet’s systems over its service life.
Recently, US officials said that the US Air Force will prefer buying Lockheed Martin’s F-35 fighter under the multi-billion dollar contract to build a new long-range strike bomber (LRS-B).
Image: USAF’s F-35 Lightning II aircraft. Photo: courtesy of US Air Force photo / Staff Sgt Darlene Seltmann.
