Joint Strike Fighter program manager Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan acknowledged to reporters at AFA’s Air, Space and Cyber conference in September that F-35 Lot 9 and 10 production talks—the two lots were being negotiated together—were dragging on, but he expected a deal “before the end of the year.” Now that Lot 9 has been awarded separately, a JSF program spokesman said Bogdan remains optimistic about a Lot 10 deal by the end of 2016. Lot 10 is for 92 aircraft, but is still a long way from the “block buy” that the Pentagon and its JSF partners want to pursue. Similar to a US “multi-year” buy, the block buy would commit in advance to a set level of production, allowing Lockheed Martin to better manage materials supply and workforce, potentially producing a unit price reduction of several million dollars per airplane. The partners have agreed in principal to do a block buy from Fiscal 2017-2019, but the earliest the US could participate would be 2018. (See also: F-35 Block Buy Will Save $2 Billion in Three Years.)
As Air Force leaders consider concepts of operations for Collaborative Combat Aircraft, sustainment in the field—and easing that support by using standard parts and limiting variants—should be a key consideration, according to a new study from AFA's Mitchell Institute of Aerospace Studies.