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The F-35, the
Pentagon's costliest arms program, has drawn fire from U.S.
President-elect Donald Trump who has made lowering prices for
military equipment a pillar of his transition into office.
Talks are still ongoing for the tenth batch of stealthy fighter
jets with a deal for 90 planes expected to be announced by the
end of the month, three people said on condition of anonymity.
A Lockheed representative declined to comment and a
representative for the fighter program said negotiations are
ongoing.
The U.S. Defense Department expects to spend $391 billion in the
coming decades to develop and buy 2,443 of the supersonic
warplanes. Though the F-35 program has been criticized by Trump
as too expensive, the price per jet has already been declining.
Lockheed, the prime contractor, and its partners have been
working on building a more cost-effective supply chain to fuel
the production line in Fort Worth, Texas.
The overtures from the incoming administration may have had some
effect, but Lockheed's F-35 program manager Jeff Babione said
last summer that the price of the F-35A conventional takeoff and
landing version of the jet would drop to under $100 million per
plane in this contract for the 10th low-rate production batch.
The F-35 comes in three configurations, the A-model for the U.S.
Air Force and U.S. allies; a F-35 B-model which can handle short
takeoffs and vertical landings for the Marine Corps and the
British navy; and carrier-variant F-35C jets for the U.S. Navy.
Lockheed and its main partners, including Northrop Grumman Corp
<NOC.N>, United Technologies Corp's <UTX.N> Pratt & Whitney and
BAE Systems Plc <BAES.L>, have been developing and building
F-35s for the U.S. military and 10 allies.
On Oct. 25 Lockheed, the world's largest defense contractor,
reported a quarterly profit that handily beat analysts'
expectations, as sales of its Sikorsky helicopters pushed total
revenue up 14.8 percent. Lockheed is set to host its
fourth-quarter earnings call on Tuesday.
(Reporting by Mike Stone; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
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