News Review: JSF LRIP 4 contract awarded | ADM Feb 2011

JSF prime contractor Lockheed Martin has received a US$3.5 billion contract modification from the US Department of Defense to manufacture 31 F-35 Lightning II stealth fighters in the fourth batch of Low-Rate Initial Production (LRIP).

The contract also funds manufacturing support equipment, flight test instrumentation and ancillary mission equipment.

Including the long-lead funding previously received, the total contract value for LRIP 4 is US$3.9 billion, or about US$126 million per aircraft.

Under the contract, Lockheed Martin will produce 10 F-35A conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL) variants for the US Air Force, 16 F-35B short takeoff/vertical landing variants for the US Marine Corps, four F-35C carrier variants for the US Navy and one F-35B for the UK.

The Netherlands also has the option to procure one F-35A.

The LRIP 4 order is the first fixed price contract for the F-35 and doubles the number of production aircraft on order: of the 31 F-35s contracted under the previous LRIP batches, three have already been delivered. Nineteen test aircraft also have rolled out.

The US and eight partner nations plan to acquire more than 3,100 F-35 fighters, including up to 100 for the RAAF, and Israel recently announced plans to purchase the jet.

The F-35’s Block 1 avionics software is now in flight test.

It made its maiden flight in November on an F-35B test aircraft known as BF-4.

The functional check flight from Naval Air Station Patuxent River lasted 1.5 hours, and all planned test points were accomplished.

The Block 1 software will enable most of the primary sensors on the F-35 and forms the foundation of all subsequent software blocks.

It enables information fusion from the F-35’s radar, electronic warfare system, distributed aperture system, electro-optical targeting system and other sensors, and provides initial weapons-release capability.

Block 1 has been undergoing airborne testing since May on the Cooperative Avionics Test Bed, a highly modified 737 airliner that incorporates the entire integrated F-35 mission systems suite, including an F-35 cockpit.

The test bed provides initial in-flight validation for F-35 software blocks before they are introduced into actual F-35 aircraft.