US Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) has awarded a contract to Lockheed Martin for the procurement of 129 Lot 15 F-35 Lightning IIs.
The $7,630,940,571 deal was signed on August 12 and is a modification to a previous advanced acquisition contract. It covers 49 F-35A aircraft for the US Air Force (USAF), three F-35Bs and ten F-35Cs for the US Marine Corps (USMC) and 15 F-35Cs for the US Navy (USN), along with 32 F-35As and four F-35Bs for unspecified non-US Department of Defense (DOD) participants and 16 F-35As for Foreign Military Sales (FMS) customers, as well as 69 shipsets of technical hardware. Contract completion is anticipated in October 2024.
The total funding released at the time of the award includes Fiscal Year (FY) 2021 USAF aircraft procurement funds of $2,162,537,083, FY 2021 USN aircraft procurement funds of $1,538,490,483, FY 2020 USAF aircraft procurement funds of $54,747,445, FY 2020 USN aircraft procurement funds of $32,338,565, FMS funds of $693,338,015 and non-US DOD participant funds of $682,929,685.
A separate NAVAIR award valued at $53,415,771 was awarded to Lockheed Martin on the same day and covers the provision of continued engineering and other related activities in support of the design and development of a Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) aircraft variant tailored for an unspecified FMS customer. Work is expected to be completed in July 2026.
