Lockheed Martin is Pentagon's pick
to develop F-35 Joint Strike Fighter
By Lisa Burgess,
Washington bureau
WASHINGTON — Lockheed Martin Corp. emerged victorious Friday over Boeing Corp. in
the battle for the Joint Strike Fighter, the largest single acquisition program in the
history of the Defense Department.
The contract is potentially worth $200 billion if the government builds all 3,000 of
the newly named "F-35s," which would make it the largest contract the Pentagon
has ever awarded.
Friday’s award to Lockheed, however, is worth $19 billion and is intended to fund
system design and development over next 10.5 years and purchase an initial 22 aircraft.
Low-rate production of the fighter is scheduled to begin in 2006; the Pentagon will decide
on full rate production in 2008.
Secretary of the Air Force James Roche, who appeared with Undersecretary of Defense
Edward "Pete" Aldridge and Navy Secretary Gordon England to announce JSF win,
said Lockheed was "clearly" the best choice for the contract.
"It was very clear as we went through the process," Roche said.
"Lockheed Martin team emerged continually" as the superior competitor,
"from a best-value basis."
The Joint Strike Fighter is the most technologically complex aircraft ever built. The
jet is designed to reach supersonic speeds, land vertically like a helicopter, and fit the
requirements of the Air Force, the Navy and the Marines — services with vastly
different missions.
Plans call for the Pentagon to purchase 3,000 jets over the next 40 years, starting in
2008. The fighter is supposed to eventually replace the Air Force’s F-16 fighter and
A-10 fighter-bomber, and the Navy’s F/A-18 carrier-based tactical fighter.
The Marine Corps intends to use the JSF to replace its AV-8B Harrier, a short-takeoff,
vertical-landing (STOVL) aircraft — currently the only plane in the Pentagon’s
inventory with the ability to hover in place like a helicopter.
A second contract for $4 billion was awarded Friday to Pratt and Whitney Military
Engines, which supplied the engines used by both Boeing and Lockheed in their competing
designs.
The Air Force intends to buy the lion’s share — 1,763 jets, according to the
most recent plans. The Navy wants 480 jets, and the Marines, 609.
The JSF is unique in the Pentagon’s history of airframe development because over
70 percent of its components are the same in each variation of the jet. The commonality is
supposed to not only cut the cost of building the jet, but also decrease the cost of
maintaining the airframe and its systems.
The fighter is also unique because its development involves a foreign partner: the
United Kingdom, which signed an agreement with the United States in January to contribute
$2 billion to the program. Britain’s Royal Air Force wants to buy 60 fighters, and
the Royal Navy hopes to acquire 90.
The Netherlands, Italy, Turkey, Canada, Denmark and Norway have engaged in serious
discussions with the Pentagon, and Defense Department officials are hoping these nations
and other allies will purchase the jets.
None of the officials appearing Friday mentioned the fact that BAE SYSTEMS (formerly
British Aerospace) is one of Lockheed’s two major team members for the JSF contract
(the other is Northrop Grumman, builder of the B-2 Stealth bomber).
BAE builds the Marine Corps’ Harrier "jump jet," which is the
world’s only short-takeoff, vertical-landing aircraft to date. Program watchers have
speculated that BAE’s STOVL experience, along with its British origins, almost locked
in victory for the Lockheed team.
Lockheed Martin, however, has won two of the largest and most elaborate military
aircraft competitions in the Pentagon’s history before the JSF: the F-117 Stealth
Fighter, and the Air Force’s new F-22 Raptor jet, which the Pentagon just approved
for production this year (Boeing is the subcontractor to Lockheed on that program).
Lockheed also builds the F-16, the world’s most popular multi-role fighter, with a
worldwide fleet of 4,000 owned by 46 countries.
The shrinking military aviation industrial base after the Cold War and subsequent
consolidations has left Lockheed and Boeing as the only two fully capable military
aircraft builders in the country.
The size of the JSF contract, and the fact that it is the last major military aircraft
development and acquisition program on the Pentagon’s horizon, has prompted great
concern on Capitol Hill that a win for one company will ultimately destroy the other and
create a monopoly.
According to JSF’s official Web site, the Air Force variant will cost $28 million
each; the Marine Corps jets, $35 million, and the carrier-based Navy jets, $38 million.
Asked about cost on Friday, however, Roche said that the "fly away" cost of
the aircraft will be "between $40 and less than $50 million."
ON THE NET:
Lockheed Martin: http://www.lockheedmartin.com
Boeing: http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/military/jsf
Joint Strike Fighter Program
Office: http://www.jast.mil/IEFrames.htm
Department of Defense: http://www.defenselink.mil
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