The C-130J production line currently has a backlog of 86 airframes, the largest in the program’s history, and manufacturer Lockheed Martin anticipates that the annual rate of production will increase significantly in the next several years as more customers sign up for the medium-sized airlifter. Until now, the production line has squeezed out 12 airframes a year, Jim Grant, Lockheed’s head of customer engagement for mobility and special operations programs, told reporters last week at AFA’s Air Warfare Symposium in Orlando, Fla. The annual rate is slated to go up to 16 this year, 27 in 2010, and “the market looks like it will be going into the mid 30s,” said Grant. Already Australia, Britain, Canada, Denmark, India, Italy, Norway, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and US operate or have ordered the aircraft. The UAE’s order for 12 C-130Js came just last month.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth this week released strategies meant to focus the Pentagon’s “alphabet soup” of innovation organizations and proliferate artificial intelligence—moves that experts say could provide the structure needed to make the military’s efforts to integrate and field new technology more effective.
