Lockheed Martin’s site in Greenville, South Carolina, has received its first F-16 aircraft following the signing of a US$900 million overflow services contract, writes Liam Garman.
The indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (IDIQ) agreement included the creation of a depot to provide assistance to US military aircraft including modifications, maintenance and programmatic work.
Vice president of the Lockheed Martin’s F-16 program, Danya Trent, welcomed the announcement.
“We are excited for this opportunity to expand our partnership with the US Air Force and ensure the continued readiness and capability of the F-16 fleet,” she said. “Our team of F-16 experts in Greenville are ready and prepared to meet our customer’s most challenging problems, partnering between production and sustainment operations, giving full life cycle coverage for the F-16.”
Lockheed Martin confirmed that 4,588 F-16s have been delivered around the world since the beginning of the program.
It comes after Northrop Grumman signed a separate agreement with the US Air Force in January to complete the final project efforts to supply the electronic warfare suite for its F-16 fleet.
The project is designed to protect pilots from the threat of radio frequency-guided weapons by detecting, identifying and defeating advanced threat systems.
According to Northrop, the electronic warfare system provides full-spectrum radar warning, threat identification and advanced countermeasure capabilities, and has proven pulse-to-pulse operability with the F-16’s newly acquired AN/APG-83 Scalable Agile Beam Radar (SABR).
