The Pentagon announced Monday that it has renegotiated the price of the F-35 stealth warplane — the most expensive weapons system in US history — on the occasion of a $34-billion order.

The US Department of Defense and aircraft manufacturer Lockheed Martin "now have a handshake agreement" on the purchase of a first batch of 157 of the aircraft, at an 8.8 percent reduction in price compared to the previous lot of F-35As, said Ellen Lord, the Undersecretary of Defense responsible for acquisitions.

The Pentagon has also taken an option to purchase 321 aircraft over the next two years with average reductions in price of 15 percent across all models, said Lord.

If all options are exercised — and Congress approves — the value would be $34 billion.

"This is a historic milestone for the F-35 Enterprise, and marks the largest procurement in the history of the Department," Lord said.

The F-35A, which is operated by the US Air Force, will cost less than $80 million apiece in 2020, a year earlier than expected, she said.

According to Pentagon figures from last October, 320 F-35s had been delivered worldwide, including 245 in the US.

"This agreement symbolizes my commitment to aggressively reduce F-35 cost, incentivize industry to meet required performance, and to deliver the greatest capabilities to our warfighters at the best value to our taxpayers," Lord said.

Launched in the 1990s, the F-35 program has an estimated cost of nearly $400 billion for the Pentagon, with the goal of producing nearly 2,500 of the aircraft in the coming decades.

Including maintenance, the total cost of the F-35 program is estimated at $1.5 trillion over the life of the program, until 2070.

The announcement of the huge contract comes three days after an ultimatum from the Pentagon to Turkey, giving it until July 31 to give up the purchase of the Russian S-400 air defense system that Washington considers incompatible with participation in the F-35 program.

If Ankara has not scrapped the S-400 purchase by that date, Turkish pilots training in the United States on the F-35 will be expelled, and agreements with Turkish firms subcontracted for manufacturing the stealth warplane will be cancelled.

Proponents tout the F-35's radar-dodging stealth technology, supersonic speeds, close-air-support capabilities, airborne agility and a massive array of sensors giving pilots unparalleled access to information.

But the program has faced numerous delays, cost overruns and setbacks, including a mysterious engine fire in 2014 that led commanders to temporarily ground the planes.

Lockheed nabs $1.8B for F-35 Block 4 software development, testing
Washington (UPI) Jun 10, 2019 –

Lockheed Martin was awarded a $1.8 billion contract for design and development of the F-35 Lightning II Phase 2.3 Pre-Modernization for the U.S. military's F-35s, as well as and those of non-Defense Department participants.

Lockheed is expected to continue development of Block 4 upgrades to software on the F-35, the Pentagon announced Friday.

The company last November was awarded a similar $130.4 million contract for the second phase of development on the incremental software modernization program. The upgrade program was slated to start this year, following completion of Block 3F upgrade installations.

Lockheed has been working to develop the Block 4 upgrade at the same time it has continued to correct mostly minor bugs causing software and firmware deficiencies in Block 3F.

The Block 4 upgrade includes some 50 improvements, among them new weapons technology, increases to the aircraft's recognition and detection ranges, and expected greater targeting performance.

Work on the new contract will be performed at the company's plant in Fort Worth, Texas, and is expected to be completed by August 2026.

The contract combines purchases for the Air Force of $732.5 million, the Navy of $371.5 million, the Marine Corps of $346 million and non-U.S. DoD participants of $358 million.

Fiscal 2019 research, development, test and evaluation funds from the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps, as well as non-U.S. DoD participant funds, in the amount of $99 million have been obligated at the time of award, with none of it expiring at the end of the current fiscal year.

Joint foreign partners on the F-35 program are Australia, Britain, Canada, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway and Turkey.

The F-35A is planned to replace the A-10 and F-16 for the U.S. Air Force, the F-35C is to replace the F/A-18C for the U.S. Navy, the F-35B will take over for F/A-18B and AV-8B Harrier for the U.S. Marine Corps.

The average F-35 unit cost in fiscal year 2019 for the Defense Department was $108.78 million, according to a Pentagon report in March.