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USAF still evaluating block buy of F-35

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U.S. Air Force acquisition chief William LaPlante said his service is still thinking about a block buy of F-35s that the Pentagon is proposing.

F-35 Lightning II variants in flight near Eglin AFB in 2014
By U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Katerina Slivinske [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

“All the services and the partners are just beginning to examine a bock buy. If in fact there is merit to it, we have time to do it,” he said at the annual Air Force Association conference.

[thumb]http://in.reuters.com/article/2015/09/14/lockheed-fighter-airforce-idINL1N11K1CT20150914[/thumb]

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One thought on “USAF still evaluating block buy of F-35”

  1. They\’ve been talking about a multi-year F-35 procurement for some time now. Last October — The United States is trying to persuade allies to purchase the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter in multi-year contracts, the Pentagon\’s programme manager for the effort said on 30 October. Bogdan: “By next summer we will put out a request for proposal on LRIP 11 jets That RFP will ask Lockheed to do a block buy for our partners. At least, that is my intention.”

    It didn\’t happen, probably because the F-35 foreign partners want no part of it. Also a multi-year buy during the development phase is illegal. According to 10 U.S. Code § 2306b – Multiyear contracts require \”That there is a stable design for the property to be acquired and that the technical risks associated with such property are not excessive.\” That is not possible on F-35 until development is complete, now scheduled for 2019. The more rigorous F-35 development testing is yet to come, and operational testing is scheduled to start in 2018. Plus many F-35 redesign features, including to the engine, will have to be tested and evaluated.

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