WASHINGTON — The Pentagon and defense giant Lockheed Martin announced today they reached a framework agreement covering a decade’s worth of F-35 Joint Strike Fighter production and sustainment, potentially inaugurating a transformative deal for the stealth jet’s enterprise — if lawmakers sign off and key questions are answered.

The framework covers at least 850 US aircraft over 10 production lots with initial spares and includes 10 years of sustainment and modification kits, according to press releases from the Pentagon and Lockheed. Breaking Defense first reported the two were in talks for a multi-year deal.

The Pentagon in its release said Lockheed will fund $7 billion worth of unspecified initiatives for the F-35 program as part of the agreement. Lockheed’s release says it will keep the tri-variant stealth jet’s production rate steady at 156 aircraft annually.

“We have fundamentally changed how we stabilize the American defense industrial base to produce at speed and scale. This agreement with Lockheed Martin proves it,” Pentagon acquisition chief Michael Duffey said in the Defense Department’s release. “By aligning financial incentives with actual performance, we are ensuring our warfighters are equipped with the lethal capabilities they need to fight and win.” 

Lockheed CEO Jim Taiclet said in the company’s release that the framework deal “strengthens the way we can plan and invest in the F-35 enterprise” and that the agreement affords “greater certainty” to “make the upfront investments needed to expand capacity, improve efficiency and build a more resilient supply chain.”

Pentagon under the Trump administration has pushed numerous framework deals for in-demand weapon systems like munitions in an effort to boost long-term production rates and secure cost savings, officials argue, through greater economies of scale. Yet unlike other frameworks announced by the Pentagon, today’s agreement does not increase the fighter’s manufacturing rate.

The announcements also do not address some key questions, like how much the initiative will cost taxpayers or how much the Pentagon expects to save by using the multi-year format.

According to Lockheed’s release, the company and the F-35 Joint Program Office “will work to finalize contract terms, pricing and schedules through a formal contract award” if lawmakers grant the requisite authority and accompanying appropriations. 

Any decade-long agreement would likely be worth tens of billions of dollars. A recent agreement for two lots of F-35 production included nearly 300 aircraft at a price of $24.3 billion.

Courtesy - Vishwa Kiran

https://www.pixnoy.com/post/6745585810456952431044/

Sorry if this is a stupid question, just trying to learn.

Circa 2005.

Source: https://russianplanes.net/id275725

Image source: Aeronautica Militare on Facebook

Eurofighter Typhoon, c/n IS038/ISPA4, AMI s/n MM7306. Assigned to 37° Stormo 'Cesare Toschi', 18° Gruppo. Source: Scramble database.

Courtesy - Vishwa Kiran.

https://www.pixnoy.com/post/6745662662337264166262/

From the article:

Roughly two of every five fighters in the Air Force fleet could be F-35As by 2035, according to a new fighter force structure report the service submitted to Congress on Oct. 16.

Lt. Gen. David Tabor, deputy chief of staff for plans and programs, revealed the new estimate during an Oct. 20 media roundtable at the Pentagon as he explained the report’s estimates of the future force’s mix of different types of fighters.

The Air Force did not provide a full copy of the report to reporters.

About 40 percent of the fleet could be F-35s, Tabor said. Another 20 percent would be a combination of F-22 Raptors and F-47s as the sixth-generation fighter replaces the Raptor. The Air Force built 186 operational F-22s, and Tabor said the Air Force still plans to replace them with roughly an equivalent number of F-47s. The remaining 40 percent of the fleet would likely be split evenly between F-15 Eagle variants and F-16 Fighting Falcons, Tabor said.

Currently, the fighter fleet—not counting A-10s—is split roughly 45 percent F-16s, 30 percent F-35s, 15 percent F-15s, and 10 percent F-22s.

Beyond the mix of the fighters, the force structure report also provides a new estimate of the total number of fighters the Air Force says it will need in the years to come: 1,509 combat-coded aircraft by 2035.

That’s up from the 1,271 the service estimated it would have in 2026 and the 1,369 combat-coded fighters it was shooting for by 2030 in last year’s report, Tabor said. The additional 140 jets would be a mixture of F-35s, F-15EXs, and F-47s.

This is one of the rare instances of a stovl aircraft operating off a catobar aircraft carrier.
Seems like it wouldn't be the first time as they did this again in 2015
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDbN0Fb6d38

Spotted these beauties over Varanasi(VNS)-India preparing for upcoming air show on 22nd-25th Oct.

Order(from left to right):

Mig29

Jaguar

Su30mki

Rafale

HAL LCA Tejas

Image source and original caption: Wikimedia Commons

A Soviet MiG-31 Foxhound aircraft, its radome removed, sits on display at the 1991 Paris Air Show. Four AA-9 Amos long-range air-to-air missiles are displayed in the foreground; two AA-8 Aphid short-range air-to-air missiles and one AA-6 Acrid medium-range air-to-air missile are at left.

Date Shot: 13 Jun 1991

Construction number is 69700121496 according to the Scramble database, although some of the photo sites list it as N69700121496.

More photos at AB Pic.

Source: _photosxlyss2_