Focusing Instead On Boosting F-22 And F-35 With New Tech

Lockheed Martin said it will not challenge the U.S. Air Force’s selection of Boeing for the contract to build the Next Generation Air Dominance fighter jet, but instead will focus on incorporating technologies developed for the competition into its future builds of F-22 and F-35 aircraft.

On a company earnings call, company President and CEO Jim Taiclet said, “We are not going to protest the NGAD decision of the U.S. government. We did get a classified debrief” from the Air Force on the decision, “and we are taking that feedback internally. We are moving forward and moving out on applying all the technologies that we developed for our NGAD bid.”

Taiclet said the he feels “we can have 80 percent of the capability” of the NGAD “potentially, at 50 percent of the cost per unit aircraft, by taking the F-35 chassis and applying numerous advanced technologies, some of which are already in process” in the Block 4 upgrade, which the company hopes to offer very soon.

He said the resulting “supercharged” F-35 will be “kind of a fifth-generation-plus concept for the F-35” and describing it as boosting the “F-35 chassis into a Ferrari.”

Currently, there are 1,100 F-35s operating globally and the company expects that to eventually grow to 3,500. Lockheed’s CFO, Evan Scott said that the company will deliver between 170 and 190 F-35s in 2025 and has a backlog of 350 orders for the jet.

Scott said, “There will be 3,500 of those chassis out there, at various stages of technology and capability. We think we can get most of the way to sixth-gen at half the cost.”

The cost of the last batch of F-35s was $90 million per aircraft for the version in use by the USAF. The Joint Program Office has not yet disclosed the unit cost under the next Lots 18 and 19. However both JPO and Lockheed have said the unit costs will be higher due to inflation and the improved capabilities of the coming lots.

FMI:  www.lockheedmartin.com/