Pentagon Is Buying 71 More F-35 Fighters The Defense Department on Tuesday announced an agreement in principle to buy 71 more F-35 fighter jets from Lockheed Martin at somewhat lower prices than last year. Pentagon officials said they would pay 4 percent less for 36 of the radar-evading jets under the new orders and 8 percent less than last year’s price for the other 35. People briefed on the latest deal, which includes ancillary equipment, said it was worth more than $7 billion. After years of delays and cost overruns, military officials have been under pressure to reduce the cost of what is by far the Pentagon’s largest program, which could cost $392 billion for more than 2,400 planes. “There is still work to be done, but these agreements are proof the cost arrow is moving in the right direction,” said Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan, the program’s executive officer. “We will continue to work with industry to identify areas for savings in future production contracts.” The Defense Department said the lower prices enabled it to buy all the planes it had planned in what will be its sixth and seventh purchase lots. That included several jets that officials had feared might be slashed by automatic budget cuts under the sequestration process. Officials said they would release more detailed cost data once the contracts were completed. Lt. Gen. Bogdan sharply criticized Lockheed Martin and his own staff after he took charge of the program last year. The relationship “is the worst I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been in some bad ones,” he said. He was upset that it took more than a year to negotiate the price of the fifth lot of the jets. He sounded much more conciliatory on Tuesday, saying that the two new contracts, which were negotiated together in six months, “represent a fair deal that is beneficial to the government and Lockheed Martin.” He said the company and the government were working together now to lower costs. The Pentagon is building variants of the plane for the Air Force, the Navy and the Marines. Officials said that the costs had eased for each customer under the new contracts. The new contracts also include the first F-35s for Australia, Italy and Norway, and a fourth F-35 for Britain. Deliveries of jets in the sixth batch will begin by mid-2014, with deliveries in the seventh batch starting by mid-2015. All told, 10 nations have expressed interest in buying an additional 700 planes. Aviation analysts have said that the price of the jets must continue to drop for Lockheed Martin to reach that sales target. [full story]--> nytimes/2013/07/31/business/pentagon-buys-71-more-f-35s-from-lockheed-martin.html
Posted on: Thu, 01 Aug 2013 11:22:51 +0000
Trending Topics
© 2015