Lockheed in talks with multiple nations over F-35 buy

Lockheed announced at the Avalon Airshow in Australia that they're in talks with multiple European nations on purchasing the F-35. The nations include Spain, Belgium, and Switzerland, with an unconfirmed report that Finland was also involved. They also said that there were other nations that had expressed interest. Adding customers to the program would help bring costs down, both for them, and for existing customers of the F-35.

Lockheed has been urging customers to go ahead with a multiyear block buy, which would drop the price down to $80M for an A model by 2020. Adding customers would also help to bring that price down to where they're aiming.

Lockheed Martin Corp said on Friday it was talking to the governments of Spain, Switzerland and Belgium about selling its F-35 fighter jets to the European nations.

Bringing new customers could help significantly reduce the cost of the military aircraft after several blowouts and production delays. The United States and 10 allies are clients of the F-35 currently.

"We are talking to several other countries - Switzerland, Belgium, Spain," Jeff Babione, Lockheed Martin's F-35 program leader, told reporters at the Avalon Airshow in Australia.

www.reuters.com...

a reply to: Zaphod58

$80m for a 5th gen. So that's how they're going to do it...

a reply to: Barnalby

A three year block buy will drop the cost over $10M for an A model.

I really wish there was a way to price out the actual materials used to build one of these things.

I bet.. I'm actual materials and production.. each Jet costs less than 300k

What I mean by that.. it's the cost of the raw materials used.. the value of all the aluminum, titanium, platinum, silicon, glass, and rubber plus the cost of fabrication.

These prices are insane.

I understand all the R&D I get it..

But honestly. Computers and modeling software these days. If I had 40 million I bet I could find a way to build a jet that can out speed, out maneuver, and out power this hunk of junk.

a reply to: Lucidparadox

Thats a pretty bold statement. Why don't you apply for a job with Lockheed Martin then? I'm sure they would love to reduce the costs themselves.

a reply to: Lucidparadox

I bet.. I'm actual materials and production.. each Jet costs less than 300k

The scrap price of a F35 is meaningless, however, someone here might know this answer.

But honestly. Computers and modeling software these days. If I had 40 million I bet I could find a way to build a jet that can out speed, out maneuver, and out power this hunk of junk.

If it were that easy, do you not think it would have been done by some third world dictator?

a reply to: Lucidparadox

But honestly. Computers and modeling software these days. If I had 40 million I bet I could find a way to build a jet that can out speed, out maneuver, and out power this hunk of junk.

Got the paint formula do you . How good are you at designing engines . What are you going to do 3d print your design .

originally posted by: Lucidparadox
I really wish there was a way to price out the actual materials used to build one of these things.

I bet.. I'm actual materials and production.. each Jet costs less than 300k

What I mean by that.. it's the cost of the raw materials used.. the value of all the aluminum, titanium, platinum, silicon, glass, and rubber plus the cost of fabrication.

These prices are insane.

I understand all the R&D I get it..

But honestly. Computers and modeling software these days. If I had 40 million I bet I could find a way to build a jet that can out speed, out maneuver, and out power this hunk of junk.

What credentials do you have?

Can you give us a little run through on how you would do that? Just a quick pointer would be great

a reply to: Lucidparadox

The tooling and man hours alone that go go into manufacturing a jet engine will never drop below hundreds of thousands of dollars per unit. That applies doubly-so for something like an afterburning turbofan with an exhaust nozzle built to stealth tolerances.

We have no problem acknowledging that a F1 or LeMans car costs 5-10 million because of the costs associated with fabricating it's composite monocoque, designing it's 12,000rpm engine, and shaping it's CFD-influenced aerodynamics.

Meanwhile, the F-35 has an airframe designed to handle stresses at such a light weight that it makes an F-1 car look like a golf cart, aerodynamics designed for such a wide range of speeds and environments that it makes the LeMans car look like a VW bus, and an engine so monumentally powerful yet lightweight that it makes a twin-turbo racing V8 that revs to 16,000rpm and makes 900 horsepower with 2 liters look like a Briggs and Stratton lawnmower engine.

And that's before you realize that the -35 carries its own proprietary supercomputer for flight control and avionics, as well as conformal sensors as precise and more complex than those in a piece of multimillion dollar medical diagnostic equipment.

And thanks to stealth, it all has to be wrapped in a composite shell built to tolerances normally found in the mechanical guts of a Patek Phillipe.

Yeah, I can see I costing $50 million to build from scratch. Maybe. But not much less than that?

In the eternal words of Bob Kaufman: I DOUBT IT!

a reply to: Zaphod58

I have a friend down in Australia that went to the air show this weekend.

Was there a reason the F-35 didn't fly at that show? Only F-22's flew.

a reply to: grey580

They don't fly at every show they go to. It's up to the country of ownership if they're going to. The more they fly, the more opportunity to break though. If they wanted to do something outside the show, then they aren't likely to fly at the show, to reduce risk of breakage.

They were delayed leaving back to Amberly due to them not having the proper lightening protection system installed.