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February 25, 2019 | International, Aerospace

Lockheed unveils new F-21 fighter jet configured for India

Sanjeev Miglani

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Lockheed Martin offered India on Wednesday a new combat jet to be made locally, the F-21, in an attempt to win a large military order worth more than $15 billion.

The U.S. defense firm had previously offered its F-16 fighter used by countries around the world for the Indian air force's ongoing competition for 114 planes to be made in India.

But Lockheed, unveiling the plan at an air show in the southern city of Bengaluru, said it was offering India a new plane configured for its needs.

It would carry technologies from its fifth generation planes, the F-22 and the F-35, the firm said.

“The F-21 is different, inside and out,” Vivek Lall, vice president of Strategy and Business Development for Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, said in a statement.

The company will build the plane in collaboration with India's Tata Advanced Systems, the firm said.

Lockheed is competing with Boeing's F/A-18, Saab's Gripen, Dassault Aviation's Rafale, the Eurofighter Typhoon and a Russian aircraft for the air force order.

The deal to replace the Indian Air Force's ageing fleet of Soviet-era fighter jets is one of the biggest contracts for such planes in play.

India has a lengthy procurement process, and no decision is expected until well after a national election due by May.

Lockheed has offered to move its F-16 production plant at Fort Worth, Texas, to India, if it wins the order in a boost for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Make-in-India plan to build a domestic military industrial base and create jobs.

It said it expected to export planes from the proposed plant in India on top of the Indian requirements for an overseas market that it estimated at $20 billion.

But the Indian military has had concerns over the F-16 as an old plane and in an earlier competition it lost out to the eventual winner, the Rafale built by Dassault.

But Lockheed said the F-21 could be India's pathway to the stealth F-35 fighter, which has entered U.S. service in one of the world's most expensive defense programs.

“The F-21 has common components and learning from Lockheed Martin's 5th Generation F-22 and F-35 and will share a common supply chain on a variety of components,” the company said.

It said production in India would create thousands of jobs for Indian industry as well as support hundreds of U.S.-based Lockheed Martin engineering, program management and customer support positions.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-airshow-india-lockheed/lockheed-unveils-new-f-21-fighter-jet-configured-for-india-idUSKCN1Q90ED

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  • Contract Awards by US Department of Defense - October 30, 2018

    November 1, 2018 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security

    Contract Awards by US Department of Defense - October 30, 2018

    AIR FORCE ACR Technical Services Inc., Newport News, Virginia (FA4890-19-D-1001); APRO International Inc. Vienna, Virginia (FA4890-19-D-1002); Goldbelt C6 LLC, Chesapeake, Virginia (FA4890-19-D-1003); Science and Management Resources Inc., Pensacola, Florida (FA4890-19-D-1004); and Yulista Support Services LLC, Huntsville, Alabama (FA4890-19-D-1005), have been awarded a ceiling $473,000,000 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for the Air Force Enterprise Contracted Precision Measurement Equipment Laboratories Services II. This contract provides Air Combat Command, the Air National Guard, and other major command and combatant command customer management, supervision, personnel, equipment, tools, materials and other items necessary to perform equipment calibrations by professional and technical metrologists. Work will be performed at various Air Force bases in the continental U.S. and outside the continental U.S., and is expected to be completed by Sept. 30, 2028. This award is the result of a competitive acquisition and five offers were received. Fiscal 2019 operations and maintenance funds in the amount of $1,300,000 will fund the current requirement. Headquarters Air Combat Command Acquisition Management and Integration Center, Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Virginia, is the contracting activity. NAVY Lockheed Martin Corp., Rotary and Mission Systems, Moorestown, New Jersey, is awarded a $365,730,330 cost-plus-incentive-fee, cost-plus-fixed fee, firm-fixed-price contract for new-construction DDG Aegis Weapon System Baseline K2 development and integration in support of the Republic of Korea Navy. This contract involves foreign military sales to the government of South Korea. This contract will provide for combat system installation, staging and integrated logistics support required for the installation, test and delivery of the Aegis Combat System K2 baselines for three Republic of Korea Navy DDGs. These efforts include program management, system engineering and computer program development; ship integration and testing; technical manuals and planned maintenance system documentation. Work will be performed in Moorestown, New Jersey (66 percent); Ulsan, South Korea (18 percent); Seoul, South Korea (7 percent); Camden, New Jersey (7 percent); and Washington, District of Columbia (2 percent), and is expected to be completed by July 2026. Foreign military sales funding in the amount of $111,535,109 will be obligated at time of award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured, in accordance with 10 U.S. Code 2304 (c)(4) (International Agreement). The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, District of Columbia, is the contracting activity (N00024-19-C-5102). The Boeing Co., St. Louis, Missouri, is being awarded a $244,714,371 not-to-exceed, firm-fixed-price contract to procure long lead material for Harpoon full-rate production Lot 91 in support of multiple Foreign Military Sales (FMS) customers. Work will be performed in St. Charles, Missouri (54 percent); McKinney, Texas (23 percent); Toledo, Ohio (8 percent); Burnley, United Kingdom (3 percent); Middletown, Connecticut (2 percent); Grove, Oklahoma (2 percent); Elkton, Maryland (1 percent); Lititz, Pennsylvania (1 percent); Galena, Kansas (1 percent); Huntsville, Alabama (1 percent), and various locations within the continental U.S. (4 percent), and is expected to be completed in March 2023. FMS funds in the amount of $244,714,371 will be obligated at time of award, none of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured pursuant to 10 U.S. Code 2304(c)(1). 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Work will be performed at Patuxent River, Maryland (52 percent); Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (11 percent); Jacksonville, Florida (2.5 percent); Pensacola, Florida (1.5 percent); Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania (1 percent); various locations within the continental U.S. (4 percent); and various locations outside the continental U.S. (28 percent), and is expected to be completed in October 2019. No funds will be obligated at time of award. Funds will be obligated on individual task orders as they are issued. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity. ARMY Northrop Grumman Technical Services, Sierra Vista, Arizona, was awarded a $74,569,127 modification (P00024) to contract W58RGZ-17-C-0019 for extension of services for Hunter Contractor Logistics Support. Work will be performed in Sierra Vista, Arizona, with an estimated completion date of April 30, 2019. 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  • It’s official: US Air Force to buy Turkish F-35s

    July 22, 2020 | International, Aerospace

    It’s official: US Air Force to buy Turkish F-35s

    By: Valerie Insinna Updated 7/21/20 at 1:25 p.m. EST to add more information about the status of the eight Turkish F-35s. WASHINGTON — After a year of speculation about what would happen to Turkey's F-35s after the country was ousted from the joint strike fighter program last year, the Defense Department gave its definitive answer Monday evening in a characteristically anticlimactic manner — through its daily contract announcements. The U.S. Air Force will officially buy eight F-35A conventional takeoff and landing jets originally built by Lockheed Martin for Turkey as part of a $862 million contract modification. The deal also contains an additional six F-35As built for the Air Force and modifications that will bring the Turkish jets in line with the U.S. configuration. A defense official told Defense News on Tuesday that the contract modification fulfills stipulations in Congress' fiscal year 2020 defense policy and spending bills. It “addresses the eight production Lot 14 F-35A aircraft originally planned to be delivered to Turkey in 2022-23,” and redirects those jets to the U.S. Air Force when they roll off the production line. The six other F-35As reflect aircraft added to the FY20 defense budget. The contract modification uses funding from the FY20 budget to pay for the Lot 14 jets. The Pentagon and Lockheed Martin finalized a deal for lots 12, 13 and 14 in October 2019, which set the price of an Lot 14 A model at $77.9 million per copy. Turkey had planned to buy 100 F-35As over the course of the program, but was ejected from the program last July after accepting the S-400 air defense system from Russia after repeated warnings from U.S. officials. At that point, Turkey's first F-35s had already rolled off the production line and its pilots and maintainers were training to fly and fix them stateside alongside U.S. personnel at Luke Air Force Base, Ariz., and Eglin Air Force Base, Fla. However, the aircraft were never officially delivered to Turkey. Since then, the fate of Turkey's jets had been an open question. In January, Defense One reported that 24 Turkish F-35s were in some stage of production, but top Pentagon weapons buyer Ellen Lord told reporters then that Washington and Ankara had not come to an agreement on what would happen to them. In the FY20 version of the National Defense Authorization Act, Congress gave the Pentagon permission to spend up to $30 million to fly the first six Turkish F-35s to a location where they could be stored and preserved until the department came up with a plan for their use. Those jets, which were produced in Lots 10 and 11, are currently being held “in long-term storage in the United States pending final decision on their disposition,” the defense official said. The Senate's version of the FY21 NDAA, which is still working its way through Congress, contains additional language that would allow the Air Force to accept, operate or even modify the first six Turkish F-35s. https://www.defensenews.com/air/2020/07/20/its-official-us-air-force-to-buy-turkish-f-35s/

  • GE 'well aligned' with Boeing and Airbus production schedules, says CEO

    February 23, 2023 | International, Aerospace

    GE 'well aligned' with Boeing and Airbus production schedules, says CEO

    General Electric is "well aligned" with production schedules for both Boeing and Airbus this year, Chief Executive Larry Culp said on Thursday.

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