NATIONAL HARBOR, Md.\u2014The Pentagon and Lockheed Martin will probably reach an agreement on lots 9 and 10 of the joint strike fighter by the end of the year, the F-35 joint program executive officer predicted Tuesday.
The slow pace of negotiations also has been a source of frustration for Lockheed, which has had to invest its own funds into paying off suppliers in order to keep the production line on track. The JPO has twice issued an undefinitized contracting action to reimburse the company for expenses associated with LRIP 9. Earlier this month, Pentagon acquisition chief Frank Kendall said the department is negotiating a similar UCA agreement to help pay the LRIP 10 costs Lockheed has already paid out of pocket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
Starting in lot 12, the JPO is set to begin negotiating block buys for the F-35 international customers. Bogdan said all foreign partners that plan on buying the F-35 during LRIP 12 have expressed interest in joining.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That deal will include advanced procurement funding for US airplanes, but the Pentagon will not enter into the buy until LRIP 13, he said. The hope is for Congress to approve the block buy strategy in the fiscal year 2018 budget \u2014 a plan the services are already on board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
“I have spoken to the services and despite the fact that the budget isn\u2019t official until it goes to the president and to the Congress, we\u2019re planning,” he said. “We\u2019re in the planning stages, but we\u2019re planning on having the services join the block buy in lot 13.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Based on industry analysis and a study by the nonprofit RAND Corporation, the JPO believes that a block buy of 450 airplanes over LRIP 12, 13 and 14 could save about $2 billion. And that would be a conservative estimate, Bogdan said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The large size of the expected F-35 contract was a contributor to the delay, the program executive officer said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":43985,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":74,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[74,7,29],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3384],"class_list":["post-42810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-afa-air-space","category-air","category-digital-show-dailies"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"QZ4QFF6GYNF67KWMUIFNUHQXTQ","arc_canonical_url":"\/digital-show-dailies\/afa-air-space\/2016\/09\/20\/f-35-program-officer-anticipates-lrip-9-and-10-deal-by-year-s-end\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n