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Aviation History
1998
1998 - 1954.PDF
Advanced weaponry is becoming available on the F-16, including Lockheed Martin's Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (under outboard wing, left) Fighting fit at 4,000 Lockheed Martin's F-16 programme has passed the 4,000-sales mark, with everything still to fight for GRAHAM WARWICK/FORT WORTH ALTHOUGH IT HAS the current best seller on the fighter market, Lockheed Martin is aware that the market is chang ing. Competition and economic pressures are driving efforts to reduce cost and increase capability of the F-16. The most pressing issue facing Lockheed Martin is avoiding the production gap that will occur, based on current orders, in 2001. The company will build 105 F-16stJiisyear, but pro duction will the decline to 57 in 1999,34in2000 and only 11 in 2001 when, on current orders, the last aircraft will be delivered. Production is then scheduled to restart in 2002 to fulfil the 80-aircraft order now being negotiated with the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Under the current plan, production would ramp up to 36 a year before shutting down again in 2004. This would leave a tiiree-year gap until production of thejoint Strike Fighter (JSF) gets underway - assuming Lockheed Martin wins die competition, and assuming the JSF pro gramme stays on schedule. The priorities, according to market develop ment director Robert Keighery, are: to fill the 2001 gap; to then increase production above that planned for the UAE; to fill the 2004-2007 gap; and to keep die F-16 in production beyond the start of JSF deliveries, botli as a back-up and as an alternative to the new fighter. DRIVING DOWN LEAD TIME The first ofthose is probably die toughest. The last aircraft, on current orders, is scheduled to be delivered to the US Air Force in April 2001. With the traditional 36-month lead time, an F-16 ordered today would not be delivered until July 2001. But Lockheed Martin has driven down lead times and can now produce the cur rent Block 50-standard aircraft in 24 months. Contract negotiation and aircraft configura tion would add to die lead time, but the poten tial exists for aircraft to be delivered beginning in October 2000 if an existing customer placed a repeat order. Several F-16 operators are look ing at top-up purchases, Keighery says. Lockheed Martin sees the "realistic" poten tial to sell a further 500 aircraft over the next 10 years, says F-16 programmes director Kevin Dwyer. Between 1,500 and 2,000 fighters will "come of age" over that period, but they will not be replaced one-for-one, he says. This leaves a real market for around 1,000 aircraft, of which Lockheed Martin expects to capture "a little more dian half with the F-16. Ofthose 500 sales, a half or more will be to existing F-16 operators, Dwyer says. Lockheed Martin is in "ongoing negotiations" with more than half of the almost 20 existing F-16 opera tors on follow-on purchases, he says. Securing substantial new sales is not going to be easy, however, not least because most of the fighter procurements under way have been, or could be, affected by economic issues. Chile's competition for 12-24 aircraft, which was to have been decided in June, has been postponed indefinitely because of the knock-on effects of the Asian economic crisis. The Philippines has 24 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 29 July - 4 August 1998
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