US Awards Lockheed $348M for F-35 Tooling, Test Support

Lockheed Martin has won a $348 million modification contract for production non-recurring, special tooling and special test equipment in support of initial production Lot 12 F-35 Lightning II aircraft for the Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, non-US Department of Defense (DoD) partners and foreign military sales (FMS) customers. 

The Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II is a family of single-seat, single-engine, all-weather, stealth, fifth-generation, multirole combat aircraft. It has three main models: the conventional take-off and landing F-35A (CTOL), the short take-off and vertical-landing F-35B (STOVL), and the catapult-assisted take-off but arrested recovery, carrier-based F-35C (CATOBAR).

Potential new weapons include the B-61 nuclear bomb, Small Diameter Bomb II, the JSOW-C and the AIM-9X Block II air-to-air missile and weapons integrated for European F-35 operators such as the Meteor missile made by MBDA. In addition, BAE Systems has been contracted to provide the ASQ-239 electronic warfare suite, which combines a 360 degree electromagnetic sensor to detect nearby threats with infrared and radar countermeasures.

Work is expected to be completed in August 2022, the US Department of Defense said in a statement Tuesday.