Page 60 - Australian Defence Magazine November 2021

60 AIRPOWER
NOVEMBER 2021 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
helping to demonstrate greater manpower product support solutions.”
Over also revealed that Lockheed Mar-
tin has struck a deal with the Pentagon for
a 30 percent reduction per flying hour in
F-35A annualised sustainment contracts
covering the US 2021-2023 fiscal years,
compared with the previous year. He add-
ed that this also represents a reduction
in sustainment costs in excess of 44 per
cent over the last five years. “These are
huge wins for our customers and some-
thing we’re proud of today,” he stated. “We’re committed to driving cost out of our portion of the sustainment cost in partnership with our customer, the US Air Force and Pratt & Whitney (manufacturer of the F-35’s F135 engine). We’re focussing on what we can do to lower the overall sustainment cost and I’m very pleased to tell you with de- monstrable evidence, we’re doing our part.”
Over said the new contracts also provide a pathway to a longer-term Performance-Based Logistics (PBL) agree- ment across the F-35 program.
efficiencies and
At Williamtown, Lockheed Martin had associated its Surveillance and Operational Awareness and Response (SOAR) software with a passive radar system developed by Daron- mont Technologies and also had a direct feed from RAAF tactical radars. “So, de- spite being distributed halfway across the world, all of the data was being aggregat- ed into a single surveillance picture,” ex- plained Lockheed Martin Australia Busi- ness Development Director Rotary Wing
Systems Neale Prescott.
“That’s one of the elements of this Joint All-Domain
operation, you need to be able to extend the surveillance horizon and connect air platforms with things like de- stroyers and frigates (which are) carrying specialist weap- ons. No longer are you doing this to some predetermined plan, you’re feeding all of the sensor data into a picture (and) assigning weapons based on who has the greatest chance of performing the intercept and you’re getting the data out in real-time.”
Importantly, the RAAF aircraft was in standard
“DESPITE BEING DISTRIBUTED HALFWAY ACROSS THE WORLD, ALL OF THE DATA WAS BEING AGGREGATED INTO A SINGLE SURVEILLANCE PICTURE”
The joint all domain warfare experimentation during TS21 involved the RAAF F-35A (with a US Air Force pilot) acting as an airborne sensor platform to provide weapons’ qual- ity targeting data to the VAWS facility in Fort Worth via MADL. The data was then relayed to a US Battle Manage- ment Centre in Oahu, Hawaii, and on to RAAF William- town via a bilateral communications network and finally to an artillery battery on the ground in the exercise area. The data was received at Williamtown inside one of the RAAF’s next-generation deployable facilities that are manufactured by Varley Group at Tomago.
LEFT: Exercise Red Flag Alaska 21-3 was the first time that Royal Australian Air Force F-35A Lightning II aircraft deployed overseas from Australia
F-35 International Business Development Steve Over says there is good news on both fronts.
Again, according to Lockheed Martin’s data, the pur- chase price of a Conventional Take Off and Landing (CTOL) F-35A variant, without engine, is a little more than US$77 million. “In 2013 or 2014 it’s fair to say that many customers were sceptical, when we had a $140 mil- lion aircraft, that we were ever going to get the acquisition cost down below $80 million,” Over said. “But here we sit today and a Lot 14 aeroplane (the current production lot) is about $77 million. We’ve been working to improve the loss in our supply chain, we continue reliability improvements,
JOINT ALL-DOMAIN WARFARE
DEFENCE