FORT WORTH (WBAP/KLIF)- Fort Worth-based Lockheed Martin Aeronautics signed a $1.9 billion deal with the Pentagon to maintain the global F-35 Fighter Jet fleet in 2020. Scott Latham F-35 Sustainment Director said the contract allows them to be the primary equipment manufacturer to maintain and serve these jets around the world. “It’s important to Lockheed Martin and Fort Worth because it not only continues to employ a large amount of people but it also allows us to continue to mature the program and our commitment of our overall performance of the jet,” said Latham.
Latham said they train pilots, maintainers and provide all the technical data for repairs. More than 975 pilots and 8,585 maintainers have been trained and the F-35 fleet has surpassed more than 240,000 cumulative flight hours. “The contract also is to maintain a 24 hour operational center for world wide support so any time anyone in the world has an issue with a jet they can call the 24 hour office center and get support immediately,” he said.
Latham emphasizes this will ensure F-35s are ready to meet war fighter needs and improve the overall performance of the jet . “We want to make sure that jet is maintained and operating at peak performance to support the war fighters around the world,” he said. “This contract enables that because it also takes care of repair parts so if something breaks on the jet this contract enables those parts to get repaired,” he said.
Latham said they are always working on ways to lower the overall cost of the jets. “We’ve lowered costs considerably across the program…just this year alone we’ve lowered it to more than $200,000 per flight hour across the F-35 fleet,” he said.
The F-35’s reliability continues to improve, and the global fleet is averaging greater than 65% mission capable rates, with operational squadrons consistently performing near 75%.
The F-35 enterprise continues to pursue 80% mission capable rates in the near term and reduce the F-35 Cost Per Flight Hour to $25,000 by 2025, which is equal to or less than the cost to sustain legacy, less capable aircraft.
To meet these goals, the enterprise is conducting supply chain competitions and building supply capacity, synchronizing spare buys, improving parts reliability and maintainability, implementing advanced analytics tools, accelerating modifications of earlier aircraft, and supporting the stand-up of government-led regional warehouses and repair depots
Currently Lockheed has over 491 jets globally and plans to end 2020 with 630 jets.
