Wednesday, July 31, 2013

LM puts forward a number of F-35s to meet DOD's available money

Motivation?

Lockheed Martin has agreed to reduce prices on orders for the next 71 F-35 strike fighters from between 4% and 8% to avoid losing orders due to the US military's planned budget cuts.

Think about that for a minute in relation to negotiations and how the conversation must have been going...

DOD said there was only so much money. However that translated into quantity of aircraft for LRIP-6 and LRIP-7 is what we are seeing.

Loss-leader and so much more. "We will make the money back on service and upgrades".

That and previous reports, don't sound like a protected program:

Sequestration Means Cut Of Funds For As Many As Five F-35 Jets
Posted on InsideDefense.com: June 18, 2013 (subscription).

That is part of what they are trying to avoid. In reference to today's Flight Global article above, "Lockheed agrees on price cuts for next 71 F-35s", that "cut" had to "pay" for at least 5 jets.

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