15 septembre 2020 | International, Aérospatial

Full COVID-19 Recovery For F-35 Deliveries Pushed To 2022

Lockheed Martin F-35 deliveries postponed by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the supply chain will not fully recover by the end of 2021, a company executive told Aerospace DAILY.

In June, Lockheed announced that 18-24 F-35s in production Lot 12, which are scheduled for delivery in 2020, will be delayed, reducing the overall delivery target to 117 to 123 jets this year.

Although Lockheed's final assembly plant in Fort Worth is now at full operations, the impact on the supply chain will drag out the recovery for another year, said Michelle Evans, executive vice president of Lockheed's Aeronautics business.

“We're still looking somewhere between 15-20 aircraft that we will be behind by the end of the year,” Evans said in an interview. “It is going to take a while for the supply chain and, thus, Lockheed Martin to recover. So it will take us longer than next year. We'll probably be staring at two years to recover those jets.”

Lockheed's supply chain is in recovery while the company continues negotiating separate deals with the F-35 Joint Program Office (JPO) for the next three years of airframe production and converting the annual sustainment contracts into a multiyear performance-based logistics (PBL) agreement.

In October 2019, the JPO and Lockheed agree to an economic order quantity of 478 aircraft for lots 12-14, which are delivered from 2020 to 2022. The agreement includes a firm order from the U.S. government for Lot 12 aircraft, with priced options for Lots 13 and 14 resulting in an overall total of 291 F-35s. The international customers added orders for 187 aircraft under a related, three-year production order.

A similar approach will be followed for the U.S. and international orders in Lots 15-17, which will include the first jets to receive upgraded Technical Refresh-3 hardware, Evans said.

Separately, the JPO and Lockheed are continuing to negotiate a long-term PBL to sustain the F-35s, with an overall goal to reduce the cost per flight hour of the F-35A to $25,000 by 2025. Lockheed sees an opportunity to reduce sustainment costs by $18 billion or more over the term of the PBL, Evans said. Lockheed expects to make an initial investment of $1.5 billion in cost-saving projects once the deal is signed.

https://aviationweek.com/shows-events/afa-air-space-cyber-conference/full-covid-19-recovery-f-35-deliveries-pushed-2022

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22 août 2019 | International, Terrestre

Raytheon delivering wireless TOW missiles to US Army
TUCSON, Ariz., Aug. 21, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Raytheon Company (NYSE: RTN) will deliver additional tube-launched, optically tracked, wireless-guided missiles for the TOW® weapon system under a $101 million U.S. Army contract announced by the U.S. Department of Defense on May 10, 2019. The weapon system transitioned to wireless guidance in 2010 and is being produced for the Army, U.S. Marines and international customers. The TOW weapon system, with the multi-mission TOW 2A, TOW 2B Aero and TOW Bunker Buster missiles, is a long-range, heavy assault-precision anti-armor, anti-fortification and anti-amphibious landing weapon system used throughout the world. "TOW gives soldiers the upper hand in battle," said Sam Deneke, Raytheon Land Warfare Systems vice president. "The system easily defeats opponents at long range in main battle tanks, fortified bunkers or moving armored vehicles." The TOW missile will remain in the Army's inventory until at least 2034. Raytheon has delivered over 700,000 TOW weapon systems to U.S. and allied forces. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/raytheon-delivering-wireless-tow-missiles-to-us-army-300905247.html
9 octobre 2018 | International, Terrestre

Oshkosh robot trucks could roll out to the Army by 2020
By: Kelsey Atherton Simple subtraction explains the impetus for self-driven supply convoys: For every autonomously driven vehicle, that's one fewer human driver needed, and likely one or two fewer human escorts in the vehicle itself. Fewer humans means fewer injuries and deaths whenever the convoy encounters violence, like an ambush or an improvised explosive device. Then there is multiplication: Take the driver and the escorts out of each truck in a seven-truck convoy, and that's suddenly 14 to 21 soldiers that can do other tasks, like escorting the convoys in other, better-armored vehicles, ones that can withstand IEDs or provide more protection from small arms fire. In June, the U.S. Army awarded Oshkosh Defense $49 million to integrate autonomous technology with the Palletized Load System vehicles in order to put robotics in the driver's seat. “It actually drives very, very human,” says John Beck, senior chief engineer for unmanned systems at Oshkosh. “The motion control algorithms that are done both on the by-wire side and on the autonomy side drive this vehicle much like a person does.” Full article: https://www.c4isrnet.com/digital-show-dailies/ausa/2018/10/07/oshkosh-robot-trucks-could-roll-out-to-the-army-by-2020/
18 juin 2018 | International, Aérospatial

Work on Dutch F-35s kicks off in Italy
Tom Kington ROME — Assembly is underway in Italy on a F-35 Joint Strike Fighter destined for the Netherlands Air Force, Dutch and Italian officials have said. The Netherlands is planning to assemble most of its F-35s at the line at Cameri in northern Italy, where Italian Air Force and Navy F-35s are already being assembled. Dutch secretary of state for defense, Barbara Visser, attended a ceremony at Cameri on Thursday to mark the start of the work on Dutch aircraft. “She was there as the aircraft, ‘AN9,' went to the mating station as assembly got under way,” said Dutch Air Force spokesman, Sidney Plankman. The aircraft is the ninth of the Netherlands' order of 37 F-35As. The first eight are being assembled at Lockheed Martin's Fort Worth facility in the U.S. The first Dutch F-35 assembled in the U.S. will roll off the Fort Worth line in January 2019 and will head to Luke Air Base for pilot training, said Plankman. “Six or seven of those assembled in the U.S. will go to Luke,” he added. Under a deal struck with the Italian government, the remaining 29 Dutch aircraft will all be assembled at Cameri, which is owned by the Italian government and operated by Italian state-controled defense firm Leonardo in partnership with Lockheed Martin. AN9 will be completed in February 2019 before undertaking test flights in Italy and heading to the Netherlands around October 2019. “It will be the first F-35 to arrive in the Netherlands,” said Plankman. Cameri has already delivered F-35As to the Italian Air Force, which are flying from Italy's Amendola Air Base. In January, the first F-35B to be assembled outside the U.S., which is destined to fly with the Italian Navy, was handed over to Italy at Cameri. Italy is currently due to purchase 60 F-35 As and 30 F-35Bs. https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2018/06/15/work-on-dutch-f-35s-kicks-off-in-italy/

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