Lockheed Martin has received a $12.5bn contract modification for the production and delivery of 148 F-35 fighter aircraft, according to a U.S. Department of Defense announcement.
The award finalises the procurement of Lot 18 aircraft and adds scope for Lot 19 production, covering 148 jets across U.S. services, partner nations, and foreign military sales customers. The contract is managed under fixed-price incentive, firm-fixed-price, and cost-plus-fixed-fee terms, the Department of Defense added.
According to the Pentagon, the breakdown includes 40 F-35A aircraft for the U.S. Air Force, 12 F-35B and eight F-35C aircraft for the Marine Corps, and nine F-35C aircraft for the U.S. Navy. Partner nations will receive 13 F-35A and two F-35B aircraft, while foreign military sales customers are allocated 52 F-35A and 12 F-35B aircraft.
Work will be performed primarily in Fort Worth, Texas (57 percent), with additional contributions from El Segundo, California (14 percent), Warton in the United Kingdom (9 percent), Cameri, Italy (4 percent), Orlando, Florida (4 percent), Nashua, New Hampshire (3 percent), Baltimore, Maryland (3 percent), San Diego, California (2 percent), Nagoya, Japan (2 percent), and other locations outside the continental U.S. (2 percent). Completion is expected in August 2028.
Funding obligations at the time of award total over $11 billion, drawn from fiscal year 2023, 2024, and 2025 procurement accounts, as well as cooperative partner and foreign military sales funds. The U.S. Department of Defense noted that $28,876 of fiscal 2023 Navy aircraft procurement funds will expire at the end of the current fiscal year.
The U.S. Naval Air Systems Command, based at Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting authority.
The air vehicle production contract adds jets for the U.S. services, international partners and Foreign Military Sales (FMS) customers. Deliveries on these lots begin in 2026.
How much work in the UK comes from this? I thought we made a small part of each F35?
‘Warton in the United Kingdom (9 percent)’- though Ii thought we were meant to get 15%
Not really a ‘small’ part. The rear fuselage sections and tail fins are all made in a BAE factory in Samlesbury (Lancashire). Some of the avionics are BAE as well. Beyond that I don’t know.
It mentions that our workshare is 9%. I have serious doubts about the UK ordering any more F-35s, we can’t even get spares for the ones we have at the moment: They are all owned by Lockheed Martin and delivered on a just in time basis.
The French were smart building most of their own equipment. Don’t they produce something like 90% of their own gear?
“I have serious doubts about the UK ordering any more F-35s”
For me the F35 has been a disaster for the UK and I think the B Variant is a dead-end for us. It is expensive to operate and can be challenging to fix (see the jet stranded in India) whilst making us very dependent on the US for spares.
I think instead of ordering more than the original 48 (49 with the crashed jet replaced) we should have:
– Used the money allocated for the second order to buy EMALs for the carriers. This would then allow us in the early 2040s to replace the F35s with the new French made carrier jet and acquire heavy UAVs in the meantime. This would give us full flexibility in the future over which aircraft we want to operate and eliminate many of out current CSG woes.
– 48 F35s is enough for a single QE. The French only have ordered 46 Rafale M and as we were never planning on operating two carriers simultaneously 48 F35B is enough in the interim provided we replace the RAF’s T1 Typhoons so F35 become solely for carrier ops.
– The whole F35A order for the UK is a total waste of time and money.
I presume there is one “lot” per year? Struggling to find information on this online.
So that’s 69 F35s for the US military, when it is retiring at least double that number of jets per year. They do have F/A-18E/F/G and F-15EX procurement in addition, of about 20 of each type per year, but those are only 4.5 generation jets.
Meanwhile China is pumping out *at least* 100 5th Gen J20 aircraft per year, another 100 J16 (SU-30 derivative) per year, and is starting full rate production of its second 5th gen fighter, the J35. Russia is also producing about 20 5th Gen SU-57s per year, plus small numbers of other types.
The West is falling behind, and seriously needs to get its act together.
How long before even the most enthusiastic supporter of the QEs begins to realize that the F 35 is the wrong aircraft for the UK. Given its continuing low availability rate in peacetime, it simply wouldn’t cope with sustained operations. For the limited capability acquired, the costs of carriers + F35B have been far too high, squeezing the budget for everything else.
The problem is we are in the position at this point that limits out decision making to how many we should commit to. I think we should buy more Typhoons but again all that does is at best affect numbers of F-35s and what version we buy and maintain. All we can do is try to learn for future decisions that are still somewhat distant while we have to deal with present and near term threats.