The Defense Department on Thursday selected Italy, the United Kingdom, Turkey, Norway and the Netherlands as part of its global F-35 airframe and engine sustainment posture.
Italy will provide F-35 initial airframe maintenance, repair, overhaul and upgrade (MRO&U) capability by 2019 for the European region, according to a DoD statement. Should additional airframe MRO&U capability be required, the U.K. would be assigned to supplement the existing capability. F-35 Program Executive Officer (PEO) Air Force Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan told reporters Thursday DoD would reexamine in five years whether the additional capacity to be provided by the U.K. would be necessary.
Turkey will initially provide engine “heavy maintenance” for the European region, also by 2018, with Norway and the Netherlands providing additional capability approximately 2-3 years after Turkey’s initial capability, Bogdan said.
These initial MRO&U assignments will support near-term, overseas operations and maintenance (O&M) and will be reviewed and updated in approximately five years. These assignments do not preclude the opportunity for other F-35 partners and foreign military sales (FMS) customers, including those assigned initial airframe and engine capabilities, to participate and be assigned additional future sustainment work. This includes component and system repairs as the fleet and its global presence grows.
Participating nations were provided with requirements outlining regional MRO&U, or heavy maintenance, needs for both the F-35 engine and airframe. Each country was afforded the opportunity to work with their industrial base to provide the F-35 enterprise work over, and above, their own F-35 needs.
DoD will announce Asia-Pacific regional workload assignments probably within the next week, Bogdan said. Bogdan said DoD in 2015 will start moving into F-35 components, the repair of certain systems and warehousing to set up its global supply chain. There is much work still to be had, Bogdan said, on the F-35 global sustainment posture and DoD will go through a similar process over the next few years of assigning that capability to those areas and partners that provide the best value for doing that kind of work.
Bogdan said Italy was selected because as it builds up its production capability at the FACO, there is an opportunity later on to add more production capacity to that FACO if other partners in the United States want to build airplanes there instead of in Fort Worth, Texas, where prime contractor Lockheed Martin [LMT] is building the F-35.
“If that were the case and we build up the FACO’s production capability, there would be a chance that the depot capability might need to be supplemented somewhere else, because we’re doing more production there than we would be depot,” Bogdan said.
Bogdan said Italy invested over $1 billion of its own money building its FACO, which he said benefits the F-35 enterprise because the rest of the partners and FMS nations do not have to bear that cost. Bogdan called Italy’s $1 billion FACO investment a “sunk cost.”
“It makes an awful lot of sense when you’re looking at best value,” Bogdan said. “A partner that is willing to invest $1 billion up front.”
Each nation that sets up a regional capability, like Turkey, Norway and the Netherlands for engines, will be guaranteed a minimum amount of work, Bogdan said, equivalent to how many airplanes they will buy. This is to provide some sort of return on investment. Beyond the minimum, he said, partner nations will then compete for that “above core workload” of their region.
Bogdan said location played more of a factor in the choice of airframe location than engine location as it is more difficult and costly to move airframes long distances.
Lockheed Martin has a pair of final checkout and assembly (FACO) facilities in Italy and Japan, which a key company executive called “mini Fort Worths,” or smaller versions of Lockheed Martin’s massive F-35 production facility in the north Texas town. The company opened the Italian FACO in July 2013 and Japan’s FACO is currently being built (Defense Daily; Dec. 17, 2013).
Lockheed Martin spokesman Mark Johnson said in an email approval to begin construction for the Nagoya, Japan, FACO facility was authorized in May and construction is well underway. Johnson said first load for the first major subcomponents into the electronic mate and assembly (EMAS) tooling is expected by December 2015.
The first delivery from the Japan FACO will be Japan’s conventional F-35, called AX-5, by the end of 2016, Johnson said. The first four Japanese F-35s (AX-1,2,3,4) will be delivered from Fort Worth by fall 2016, he added.