SEA AIR SPACE 2023 — The F-35 enterprise is “transitioning at the end of the year” to a new five-year, performance-based logistics (PBL) apparatus to sustain the global Joint Strike Fighter fleet, according to a Lockheed Martin executive.
Previous attempts to craft a multi-year PBL contract did not come to pass, with the Pentagon wary about getting locked into a deal before needs were fully known. Now after laying the groundwork for the move, program officials seem poised to award such a deal to Lockheed, though congressional hurdles will need to be cleared before a contract can be issued.
“We are transitioning at the end of this year. It’s our work together with the [F-35] Joint Program Office to transition to a supply performance-based logistics contract,” Bridget Lauderdale, Lockheed’s vice president and general manager of the F-35 program, said during a panel today at the Sea Air Space Conference held in National Harbor, Md.
The PBL contract would ensure more timely distribution of necessary parts and other supplies to keep F-35s flying, Lauderdale said. Previous sustainment agreements were “transactional” and required more time to execute, she said, whereas a PBL contract would more efficiently address sustainment challenges through things like repairing existing parts rather than fielding new ones.
Lauderdale further explained that the new PBL arrangement would go beyond the fighter’s top primes. “That’s not just Pratt & Whitney, [Lockheed Martin], that would be the supply — the entire industry participating in those pieces,” she said.
Lockheed has been pushing for a multi-year PBL agreement for years, though until now the Pentagon has been hesitant to get on board. Anticipating the crafting of such a deal, lawmakers in the fiscal 2022 National Defense Authorization Act stipulated that the F-35 program would need to certify that the PBL would either decrease sustainment costs or increase readiness before it could be awarded.
Russ Goemaere, a spokesman for the F-35 Joint Program Office, told Breaking Defense that “Assuming the PBL meets the conditions” specified in the FY22 NDAA, “the PBL could be awarded by the end of 2023.”
Speaking with reporters after the panel discussion, Air Force Lt. Gen Mike Schmidt, the program executive officer for the F-35, said that fighter’s sustainment was not stood up to be “organic” — meaning that maintenance would be handled by the government — though the program is “moving more and more in that direction.” As a result, officials are seeking rights to more data underpinning the sustainment picture as part of the PBL so that more upkeep can be performed directly by the military services rather than contracted out.
“Some of the data that we need, isn’t necessarily data that the contractor doesn’t want to give us. But it’s data that doesn’t exist in the format that we’re used to having it,” Schmidt said. “So ordering that data and having, you know, a discussion with industry about what that data needs to look like” will be key considerations during the process, he said, adding that “industry is being cooperative in that but we certainly have our challenges.”
The potential transition to a new PBL sustainment contract comes as the program looks to field a new logistics maintenance system known as the Operational Integrated Network (ODIN) and retire its legacy predecessor known as Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS). According to testimony [PDF] Schmidt delivered to lawmakers last week, officials are moving to field classified ODIN hardware this year.
Block 4 EW
Separately, BAE Systems announced today that the company received $491 million in contracts from Lockheed to produce Block 4 electronic warfare (EW) systems for jets tied to lot 17 deliveries. According to a press release from BAE, the new Block 4 EW systems includes “significantly upgraded” hardware and software to improve sensing and signal processing, enabling the F-35 to more effectively perform tasks like jamming and threat identification.
Lisa Aucoin, BAE’s vice president of F-35 solutions, told Breaking Defense that the Block 4 systems require Technology Refresh-3 (TR-3) hardware, which Schmidt told lawmakers last week is slated to be cut into production in April 2024. Asked about plans for retrofitting previous aircraft, Aucoin added that “we do plan to retrofit pre-Lot 17 aircraft with Block 4 EW systems.”
Schmidt said today that lot 17 deliveries will take place during calendar year 2025.
PHOTOS: Sea-Air-Space 2023
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