Do foreign partners in the JSF consortium get charged for development costs or just pay the fly-away cost?
Lockheed sees great progress on F-35 fighter | Reuters
Lockheed sees "great progress" on F-35 fighter
WASHINGTON, Oct 24 (Reuters) - Lockheed Martin Corp on Wednesday said it was making "great progress" on the F-35 fighter jet program, with F-35 deliveries exceeding those of F-16 fighters and C-130J transport planes combined for the first time in the third quarter.
Chief Operating Officer Chris Kubasik, who takes over as CEO next month, said there were 94 F-35 jets in various stages of production at Lockheed plants in Fort Worth, Texas and Marietta, Georgia, plus a final assembly plant in Italy run by Alenia, a subsidiary of Finmeccanica SpA.
He said the program, restructured three times in recent years to slow production and work out lingering technical challenges, had completed nearly 1,000 test flights in total. Test flights were 25 percent ahead of plan as of September.
"This program is making great progress and it really has a lot of momentum," Kubasik told reporters on Wednesday during a discussion about Lockheed's third-quarter earnings.
He said labor costs were coming down faster on the F-35 program than any previous fighter jet program in over 40 years.
Lockheed is on track to hit its target unit "flyaway" cost, excluding development, of $67 million in fiscal 2012 dollars by 2018, he added.