The Pentagon awarded Lockheed Martin a contract for 145 F-35 Lightning II stealth fighter jets worth almost $12 billion.

An Undefinitized Contract

In the last days of December, the Pentagon awarded Lockheed Martin an “undefinitized, fixed-price incentive (firm-target), firm-fixed-price modification” to a contract for the production of 145 F-35 Lightning II stealth fighter jets. The contract is worth $11.7 billion.

Essentially, the contract is an extension to a previously awarded contract for F-35s. But for legal and practical reasons, the U.S. military and some other F-35 customers order F-35s—and indeed other aircraft—in batches as opposed to making one contract for the full number. Indeed, in the case of the U.S. military, that would be mighty impractical since it has decided to order approximately 2,500 F-35s of all types for the Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps.

This extension in the F-35 contract highlights the international nature of the F-35 program, which is one of its biggest strengths. Work for the 145 F-35s will be performed in at least four different countries (the United States, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom), and within the United States, five different states will benefit from the work (Texas, California, Maryland, New Hampshire, and Florida).

Specifically, the extension to the original contract is for the production and delivery of 145 F-35s from the Lot 18 batch. Out of these aircraft, there are forty-eight F-35A for the Air Force, fourteen F-35C for the Navy, and sixteen F-35B and five F-35C for the Marine Corps. Moreover, fifteen F-35A and one F-35B are destined for non-U.S. Department of Defense program partners, and thirty-nine F-35A and seven F-35B for Foreign Military Sales customers.

A Complex Program

As you can tell, the F-35 Program is a highly complex one with twenty member countries and three variants of the same aircraft (F-35A, F-35B, and F-35C) involved.

The twenty member countries are the United States, United Kingdom, Italy, the Netherlands, Canada, Australia, Denmark, Norway, Israel, Japan, South Korea, Belgium, Poland, Singapore, Finland, Switzerland, Germany, the Czech Republic, Greece, and Romania. Turkey was also in the program until it decided to purchase the S-400 Triumpf air defense system from Russia, thus triggering the anger of the United States and NATO and resulting in its defenestration from the program.

The total order of F-35s from these countries is approximately 3,579 aircraft. In terms of the specific variants, the F-35A is the most popular, with around 2,700 orders, followed by the F-35B, with 575 orders, and the F-35C, with 340 orders. The U.S. military is by far the largest F-35 purchaser with a total order of 2,456 aircraft (the Air Force has ordered 1,763 F-35As, the Navy 270 F-35Cs, and the Marine Corps 353 F-35Bs and seventy F-35Cs). Interestingly, the U.S. military is the only one operating the F-35C, which is designed for aircraft carrier operations.

The F-35 Lightning II is the most advanced fighter jet in the skies today and is capable of evading enemy air defenses with its stealth characteristics.

Stavros Atlamazoglou is a seasoned defense journalist specializing in special operations and a Hellenic Army veteran (national service with the 575th Marine Battalion and Army HQ). He holds a BA from Johns Hopkins University and an MA from Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). His work has been featured in Business Insider, Sandboxx, and SOFREP.

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