The US military's most technologically sophisticated aircraft was designed to overwhelm enemies in combat but also as a novel multinational business consortium.

A dozen countries so far have signed up for the F-35 either as buyer or as co-producer.

Six nations recently were selected to provide depot maintenance for future F-35 fleets based in Europe and Asia.

Pentagon officials and executives from F-35 manufacturer Lockheed Martin Corp. have hailed global partnerships as essential to the success of the program and, as stated in Lockheed's marketing materials, as a model for "unprecedented technology transfer and innovation that is invaluable to the development of the F-35."

But once the program kicks into high gear over the coming years, a spirit of cooperation will have to coexist with stringent security policies and tight controls over the aircraft's most sensitive technologies that the United States wants to keep from its rivals.

The Pentagon signed carefully negotiated technology transfer agreements with F-35 partners, each based on the country's political and economic ties to the United States. Despite tight controls, industrial espionage has been a major concern, particularly in the F-35 program.

Recent decisions to assign Italy, Turkey, the Netherlands, Norway, Japan and Australia major roles in future F-35 maintenance are meant to be seen as proof that the program's global scope is not just a slogan. As partner countries sign up hundreds of new suppliers, however, it will be up to the US government to make sure secrets are protected.

"We have to be careful how we expose those technologies to the bigger world," said Air Force Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan, F-35 program executive officer.

More than 3,000 F-35s are projected to be built over several decades. There are 1,200 domestic suppliers and hundreds more will be joining the program outside the United States.

Bogdan's office reviews proposed vendors, and as more maintenance facilities and depots are built around the world, the US government intends to keep an eye on each one.

Under a so-called global sustainment plan, the F-35 office divided aircraft buyers into three regions — North America, Europe and the Pacific.

Lockheed Martin and engine maker Pratt & Whitney are the primary contractors that will support and maintain US aircraft.

Italy was selected to provide regional maintenance, repair, overhaul and upgrade work for all F-35 airframes based in Europe. The United Kingdom would be a back-up supplier if additional capacity were needed. Turkey was picked to perform heavy engine maintenance, with Norway and the Netherlands in line to take up some of the work two to three years later.

In the Pacific region, F-35 airframe maintenance and repairs will be performed by Japan for the Northern Pacific and Australia for the Southern Pacific. Australia was the top choice for heavy engine maintenance, with Japan as a backup.

Italy and Japan are building cutting-edge manufacturing sites known as "final assembly and checkout" facilities. Each FACO will be run by local suppliers selected by the host country.

But Lockheed Martin representatives will be responsible for overseeing the technical aspects of the manufacturing process and US government officials will be onsite to ensure security protocols are followed.

Allowing other countries to tear down fifth-generation airframes and engines "comes with some risk," Bogdan said Dec. 17 during a conference call with reporters.

The Pentagon considers the F-35 a technological crown jewel. It is coated with ultra-secret materials that help the aircraft evade enemy radar.

It also is packed with advanced information systems, sensors and electronic warfare technologies that make the aircraft a flying command center. And its software source code is said to be its secret sauce.

As more countries set up maintenance facilities, the United States will have to ensure that none of the top-secret technology is leaked. "There are certain things we will not let any of our partners or FMS [foreign military sales] customers have, even at the national level," Bogdan said.

Consolidating depot maintenance at the regional level allows for better oversight, Bogdan said. FACO sites in Italy, Japan and Australia will serve as maintenance hubs for Europe, the North Pacific and South Pacific regions, respectively.

Heavy airframe and engine maintenance only will be done at the regional level under the oversight of the U.S. government, he said. "We are not going to stop partners or FMS customers from doing their own sovereign, national level work on their airplanes. But only up to the level to which the United States would let them do that work."

The United States has not agreed to let any one country do heavy airframe maintenance on its own, even for their own airplanes, said Bogdan. "That is going to be done at a regional level with U.S. government oversight or by the United States."

Bodgan said he was in Japan six months ago when Lockheed and partner Mitsubishi Heavy Industries broke ground on the new FACO, which is expected to be up and running by 2018. "Japan is setting up the facility [at its own expense] and ensuring the space is allocated appropriately," he said. "The next step is to ensure that the security aspects of the facilities are built in."

One notable feature of Japan's FACO is its vertical design. Whereas Lockheed's plant in Fort Worth, Texas, and Italy's facility at Cameri Air Base are expansive mile-long factories, Japan opted to build its assembly in multiple levels to make more efficient use of its limited square footage.

Two countries were selected to maintain aircraft in the Pacific region because the distances are daunting. Australia's F-35, for example, would have to travel 7,000 miles to get depot maintenance in Japan. That would create significant aerial refueling and logistics demands, said Bogdan.

Operational considerations also were factored. "If they need a rapid upgrade, moving 7,000 miles to do a mod has an operational risk." Australia is projected to buy 72 aircraft, and Japan 42.

The Defense Department surveyed all F-35 partner nations for interest in doing the work. Bogdan said candidates were selected based on their financial investment in the program and technical merit, and the Pentagon also factored in issues like geography and the projected location of aircraft.

It is not clear that regional tension between Japan and South Korea was considered in the selection of Japan as an F-35 maintenance hub. South Korea officials already have announced that they will only send their F-35s to Australia for maintenance work.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Lockheed Martin Corp's F-35 fighter jet is on track to meet the Marine Corps's July target to declare the jet ready for combat use, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus said Thursday.

The F-35 B-model, which can take off from shorter runways and land like a helicopter, was making good progress, Mabus told reporters after a speech to the Surface Navy Association.

He said he expected it to meet the Marine Corps's target date, a statement echoed by a Marine Corps spokesman.

He said the Navy still expected to declare the F-35 C-model, which is designed for use on aircraft carriers, ready for combat use by the end of the decade, as planned. The Navy tested the F-35C on board a ship for the first time in November.

The Navy had more time before it needed to declare the plane ready for combat use, or that it had achieved an initial operational capability, but it remained committed to that part of the F-35 program as well, Mabus said.

"We’re not lukewarm about the F-35 in terms of the need for it in the fleet, and the fact that it’s going to form the backbone of our carrier air for a long time," he said.

Mabus said the Navy was also looking at whether it needed additional EA-18G Growler electronic attack planes built by Boeing Co, since it was now the only military service providing that electronic attack capability.

"How many do you need to do all the electronic attack that you need?" Mabus said.

He declined to discuss the Pentagon's fiscal 2016 budget request, which is due to be delivered to Congress on Feb. 2, but his comment suggested the Navy could include additional Growlers in its budget request, or add them to an "unfunded priority" list usually sent separately to U.S. lawmakers as they debate the administration's budget proposal.

The Navy's fiscal 2015 base budget request did not include any of the Boeing planes, but it added 22 Growlers to its unfunded wish list. Congress ultimately funded 15 planes as part of the fiscal 2015 budget.

Boeing is working with the Navy on how to stretch production of its F/A-18 and EA-18 military aircraft in St. Louis past 2016. The 15 planes added to the budget in 2015 could make production last through 2017 if the Navy agrees to a slower delivery schedule.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by James Dalgleish)

SEE ALSO: Why the Pentagon is spending so unbelievably much on the F-35

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The most advanced missile system on the planet can hunt and blast incoming missiles right out of the sky with a 100% success rate — from a truck. 

With its unmatched precision, the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) can equalize tensions around the world with its mobility and strategic battery-unit placement: In April 2013, the Pentagon deployed a THAAD battery to Guam in order to deter North Korean provocations and further defend the Pacific region. 

Impressively, the THAAD missile does not carry a warhead, instead using pure kinetic energy to deliver "hit-to-kill" lethality to ballistic missiles inside or outside of the atmosphere. Each launcher carries up to eight missiles and can send multiple kill vehicles out, depending on the severity of the threat.

Lockheed's THAAD launcher is one element of this highly integral anti-missile system. This graphic from Raytheon shows the rest of the equipment needed for each enemy-target interception.

How THAAD works

First, an incoming target missile is first launched from another location. Five minutes later a truck-mounted THAAD interceptor missile launches in pursuit of the target. 

This is a close shot of what the THAAD missile looks like when launched:

 And here's what the launch looks like from far away:

The following color infrared imagery shows the THAAD missile demolishing the target:

According to the US Missile Defense Agency, there are more than 6,300 ballistic missiles outside of US, NATO, Russian, and Chinese control, and other US partners around the globe are looking to broker a deal to purchase THAAD. 

The United Arab Emirates has become the first foreign buyer after signing a deal with the Department of Defense for $3.4 billion. Saudi Arabia and Qatar have "expressed interest," according to Richard McDaniel, vice president of Patriot Advanced Capability programs at Lockheed Martin. "We expect deals," he added.

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The US military wants to upgrade its stable of combat choppers.

One possible model for future combat aircraft can take off and land vertically, and then fly like a traditional airplane.

Bell's V-280, which combines a combat helicopter's fuselage with tilt-rotors, would basically be a Black Hawk that can adjust its thrust to fly like a fixed-wing aircraft once it's airborne.

The US is keenly interested in developing this kind of capability. Right now, aviation companies are competing to win contracts for the Joint Multi-Role (JMR) helicopter program, a selection process that will unfold until 2017 and help the US Army select a new multi-purpose aircraft. The V-280 could fit the bill.

The V-280's is an early stage of development and tilt-wing aircraft have an uneven record. Making the tilt-wing viable was a decades-long undertaking for defense researchers.

That work resulted in the Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey that is currently flying for the US military, although 30 people were killed in crashes during the plane's decade-long testing period.

The Bell's V-280 is a somewhat simpler aircraft, though. It uses fixed engines with moveable rotors and drive shafts; in the case of the Osprey, all three of these are moveable.  

Ideally, tilt-rotor aircraft marry the maneuverability of a helicopter — which needs far less space to take off and land than any fixed-wing aircraft — with the speed and range of a plane. Bell's fact sheet on the V-280 indicates it could carry four crew and 14 passengers, with a range of up to 800 nautical miles, beating the Black Hawk's range by nearly 500 miles.

That would make the V-280 especially suited to evacuating injured soldiers. The aircraft could travel a considerable distance and land in inhospitable terrain.

The V-280 also has the advantage of being able to travel on its own to conflict zones. For one-way trips, the plane's range goes up to 2,100 nautical miles, making the V-280 "strategically self-deployable," or independent of massive transport vehicles. 

Bell's fact sheet on the V-280 emphasizes its role as a support and transport aircraft rather than one designed for combat.

But in 2010, the Army's program executive officer for aviation envisioned a new "joint multirole helicopter" that would have a "light attack scout variant." (A spokesperson for Bell clarified that the aicraft will only serve a transport function).

Bell may have plans to showcase a mock-up of the vehicle like the one in the tweet below at an aviation summit in March, a Bell spokesperson told Business Insider.

This concept mock-up of the Bell V-280 Valor is really pretty. Could replace the Apache and Blackhawk #avgeekpic.twitter.com/0V8vcLDKWq

— Oregon Aero, Inc. (@OregonAero) January 16, 2015

The military is also considering adding firepower to the V-22 Osprey, yet another instance of developing the offensive capability of a tilt-rotor aircraft.

Bell's biggest competitor for the Army contract is Boeing, its partner in the development of the V-22 Osprey.

Boeing has partnered with Sikorsky, creator of the Black Hawk, to create three aircraft based on the latter company's X2, which in 2010 beat the world record for helicopter speed at 260 knots — or 299 miles — per hour (although that record has since been broken). The X2 gets its motive power from a tail-mounted propeller instead of just the rotors relied upon by conventional helicopters.

This video show the Sikorsky X2 warming up before beating the world record for helicopter speed in 2010. 

Andy Woodward, communications manager at Bell, told Business Insider that "We will be flying a V-280 by September of 2017."  

SEE ALSO: Here are the "X-Planes," some of the most secretive and ambitious aircraft ever built

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When it comes to curb appeal, few airplanes can match the look of the SR-71 “Blackbird.” And nothing in the Air Force’s inventory — past or present — can beat its signature performance characteristics. 

Here are 11 photos that show why the Blackbird remains the standard of aviation cool.

The SR-71 Blackbird was a high-speed, high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft developed by Lockheed’s legendary “Skunk Works” team in the 1960s.

The Blackbird was capable of speeds exceeding Mach 3 (2,200 mph). The fuselage was designed to expand at high speeds, which caused the plane to leak fuel on the ground because the panels fit very loosely when the jet was parked.

The Blackbird’s service ceiling (max altitude) was 85,000 feet, which forced crews to wear pressure suits and astronaut-type helmets.

SR-71s were manned by two aviators: a pilot and a reconnaissance systems officer, who monitored systems from the rear cockpit.

Only 32 Blackbirds were manufactured, and they were in service from 1964 to 1998. Despite over 4,000 combat sorties, none of the planes were lost because of enemy fire. But 12 were destroyed in accidents.

Claustrophobic types need not apply. The narrow space between canopy rails didn’t give crews much room to move around. The outer windscreen of the cockpit was made of quartz and was fused ultrasonically to the titanium frame. The temperature of the exterior of the windscreen reached 600 F during a mission.

There's nothing glass about the Blackbird's cockpit. The SR-71 presented the pilot with a dizzying array of steam gauges and switches. And visibility out the front wasn’t the greatest.

Although not technically a stealth aircraft, the SR-71 was hard for enemy SAM systems to spot because it was designed with a low radar cross section in mind.

Because of its high approach speed, the Blackbird used a drag chute to slow down on the runway after touchdown.

Aerial refueling capability allowed the SR-71 to perform long-range, high-endurance missions.

The Blackbird still holds the record for fastest air-breathing manned aircraft (a record it broke in 1976).

Although the SR-71 is no longer in service, the legend lives on.

SEE ALSO: This tilt-rotor aircraft could be the future of the US Army's helicopter fleet

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The argument that the F-35 Lightning II is "too big to cancel" is not a good enough reason to keep it going.

The F-35 Lightning II, otherwise known as the Joint Strike Fighter, has a lot of critics and a lot of supporters.

To cut through the debate being waged on the aircraft, it is important to point out four facts about the plane's situation: The F-35 is behind schedule and over budget; it isn't delivering the capabilities the military needs; the world is vastly different from the one in which the F-35 was envisioned; and fourth and most importantly, the Department of Defense has canceled or terminated massive weapons programs in the past for similar reasons.

Focusing on the final fact is most important for this debate.

The F-22, the Army's Comanche helicopter, and the Navy's Seawolf submarine are all case studies of programs that the military invested in but ultimately canceled despite heavy industry opposition and sometimes-great technical results.

Though there are been many critiques of the troubled F-35, the program has long been dubbed "too big to cancel."  To date, the cost of building the aircraft has been projected at $400 billion spread across 11 countries and 46 states, with a lifetime cost of up to $1.5 trillion (See this infographic breaking down these costs by states and countries).

Congress has approved over $83 billion in spending for the F-35 with the lifetime cost of the airframe estimated at $1.62 trillion. But with an acquisition-focused secretary of defense and Sen. John McCain as the new head of the Senate Armed Services committee, now is the perfect time to draw a line in the sand against programs that consistently fail to meet deadlines on budget and reform acquisition strategy.

The immediate comparison that can be drawn to the F-35 is the F-22. The premature ending of this program was forced on the Air Force by the DoD in 2009 when then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said: "We must break the old habit of adding layer upon layer of cost, complexity, and delay to systems that are so expensive and so elaborate that only a small number can be built …"

The disagreement between Air Force leadership and Gates was so severe that some say it blazed the trail that eventually led to the firing of both the Air Force's chief of staff and secretary.

The cancellation of the program came at the height of the fighting in Iraq, when resources were needed to meet current challenges rather than potential future fights.

In his memoir, "Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War," Gates seems exasperated by an Air Force wanting to spend money on amazing new technology that had no bearing on the current fight.

There are similar parallels to today. The Air Force has a drone shortage, is trying to cancel an exceedingly successful weapons platform, and is trying to field a new platform that cannot meet the needs of the current fight.

In an era of declining defense budgets, it is more important to spend every dollar on programs that work and are relevant than to invest in advanced stealth technology that, in the form of the F-22, has seen very little combat since becoming operational.

If the F-22 is a case study on why we should cancel the F-35, the Comanche helicopter shows how it can practically be done through Congress. The Comanche was the Army's $6.9 billion program to develop a stealth helicopter until 2004 when the 22-year-old program was abruptly canceled by the Army.

Just after seemingly getting the helicopter back on track, the Army decided the program, which was forecast to consume 40% of the Army aviation budget, was no longer needed. The branch shifted money to other Army aviation programs.

This shift is the key lesson to be drawn from the Comanche. Congress continually provides funding for programs the services do not request.

This would most likely also be true if the Pentagon tried to cancel the F-35. According to Lockheed Martin, the program employs 125,000 people in 46 states, meaning many senators and representatives are lined up to support it.

However, the DoD could work with Congress to reinvest the money saved from the F-35 into other programs in the same states — which is exactly what happened when the Army pulled the plug on the Comanche.

Service life and avionics upgrades to the F-16 could be expanded and accelerated. Money would be available to move forward with Super Hornet improvements. Instead of divesting the entire aircraft inventory for a single problem plagued replacement, the service could reinvest in proven airframes to ensure their superiority.

This approach can keep the congressional heat off the DoD by showing the direct link between how every F-35 dollar saved will be spent on another program in a way that will garner just as much if not more taxpayer support.

A similar tactic could be used with the F-35's international partners. Canada, one of the original international partners in the program, has already dropped out because of costs. Others are on the fence or buying other aircraft to fill the gap caused by delays in the F-35 program.

Incorporating the needs of allies into the program cancellation will be necessary to ensure their willingness to cooperate on future programs. These needs may necessitate continued F-35 expenditures in the short term for nations like the United Kingdom, which has a carrier already built and waiting for F-35s to arrive.

Those nations still wanting the aircraft may actually get them faster if the US stops taking deliveries of jets.

Though canceling the F-35 can support today's aircraft, the constant worry is about tomorrow's fight. During an interview with "60 Minutes," Chief of Staff of the US Air Force Gen. Mark Welsh pointed out that "air superiority is not a given." He made clear that if put against newer aircraft from Russia and China, the US' current legacy fighter aircraft would not survive the conflict.

The US will still need to find a way to counter this threat, and the cancellation of the Navy's Seawolf submarine shows how strategically ending an acquisition program can result in a better follow-up program.

The Seawolf was designed in the mid-1980s to counter the large Soviet submarine threat and replace the aging Los Angeles-class attack submarines.

Despite promises, and eventual delivery, of amazing performance, the disappearance of a planned adversary and 25% cost overruns led President George W. Bush to limit the program to only three of 12 proposed submarines in 1992.

As with the F-35, this left the Navy with the need to replace an aging fleet of submarines but no active program to solve the problem. Here is where the Navy learned its lesson. Though amazing pieces of technology, the Seawolf program was too expensive and was trying for too many technological advances.

The key to weapons of the future is their ability to fulfill the mission and survive in a fiscally constrained environment. In developing the Virginia-class submarine, the Navy eliminated requirements that "were unrealistic and would not be worth the cost needed to achieve them."

The Virginia-class ended up costing $2.2 billion less per submarine, and each delivery occurred under budget and ahead of schedule. Perhaps trying to make a single aircraft capable of stealth air-to-air engagements, close air support, carrier landings, and vertical takeoffs should be considered "unrealistic and would not be worth the cost needed to achieve."

With the GAO estimate that the operating and support cost for the F-35 fleet would be $8.8 billion more per year than the combined cost of the various aircraft fleets it is supposed to replace, it would most likely be more cost-effective to create multiple aircraft for each requirement. For fights in a contested area, a new program should be developed relying on existing technologies.

Lockheed Martin built both the F-22 and the F-35; certainly it can incorporate the lessons learned from both aircraft, with no new technical requirements from the DoD, and rapidly design an aircraft that can serve as a basic, low-observable attack aircraft.

The Marine Corps wants its own close support aircraft, so the lessons learned from the F-35 should be incorporated into an aircraft with vertical/short takeoffs as its primary goal and is not constrained by the need for stealth.

The DoD budget has decreased by over 15% in the past five years. Any acquisition program that does not place life-cycle cost savings as one of its most important goals does not represent a smart strategy for the future.

Instead of focusing on the newest technology, the DoD, and the Air Force in particular, needs to focus on the right technology.

A 2005 graduate from the United States Air Force Academy, Matthew Gjertsen served for nine years in the active-duty Air Force. He received his master's degree from George Washington University in 2010. In 2014, he transferred into the Air Force Reserves and is now a space officer and public policy commentator. Follow him on Twitter @gjertsenmd.

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Lockheed Martin Corp <lmt.n>, the Pentagon's largest arms supplier, reported an 8.6 percent rise in quarterly revenue, helped by higher demand of its F-35 fighter jets.

Revenue increased to $12.53 billion in the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31 from $11.53 billion a year earlier. Revenue at the company's aeronautics division increased 6 percent to $4.14 billion.

(Reporting by Sagarika Jaisinghani in Bangalore; Editing by Joyjeet Das)

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The Pentagon has released its budget request for 2016, and among the items being digested by the DC-based defense community is the reprieve of the storied U-2 spy plane.

First built in 1955, the U-2 is, next to the B-52 bomber, the longest-lived airplane in the US Air Force’s inventory.

Today’s U-2s are dramatically modified from their original version, being larger and with far more sophisticated reconnaissance capabilities.

Crucially, they offer greater flexibility than satellites. On balance, they still remain cheaper to operate than drones.

These capabilities are what keep the Dragon Lady in the air. As I wrote in the Wall Street Journal last year, the military is actually relying more on the U-2 today than in the past.

While the Air Force flip-flopped on keeping or retiring the U-2 fleet, top commanders have testified to its usefulness in an increasingly unstable world.

The officer in charge of of US troops on the Korean peninsula asserted that the U-2 is the best reconnaissance platform for use along the Demilitarized Zone, something even more important given the unpredictability of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un.

Similarly, with NATO military commander Gen. Philip Breedlove now calling for supplying Ukrainian forces with defensive weapons in light of new Russian attacks in the east of that country, the U-2 can provide needed, real-time intelligence of Russian troop movements.

The advantages are similar when it comes to keeping an eye on sudden developments in Libya or tracking conflict associated with groups like Boko Haram.

So, a bit of good news. Parts of the world continue to become more unstable. But for now, Washington will maintain one unique capability for keeping an eye on trouble spots.

Whether that prevents more strategic surprise, let alone leads to better defense policy, is another matter. But stripping away part of our ability to know what’s going on in the world would have been a cause for alarm.

SEE ALSO: The Pentagon budget gives a skewed idea of how much the US actually spends on defense

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The price of the F-35 joint strike fighter will come down considerably over the next several years, said Lockheed Martin President and CEO Marillyn A. Hewson. But making the aircraft more affordable for the United States and foreign buyers, she noted, should not come at the expense of company profits.

Lockheed Martin is cutting costs company-wide and introducing new manufacturing techniques to help bring down the F-35 price tag of about $95 million per airframe to about $80 million.  But Hewson rejected the notion that the company should sacrifice profits as long as the program is performing as promised.

“The goal is to reduce the cost of an F-35A fifth generation fighter to the equivalent of today’s fourth generation fighter. And we’re confident we’ll get there by the end of the decade,” Hewson said Feb. 18 at a news conference in Arlington, Va.  

“By no means are we making exorbitant profits,” she said. “We are focused on performance. We’re going to stay focused on performance and, as we perform, we expect to get a return for that performance.”

Contractor profits have been a contentious issue since Program Executive Officer Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan took charge of the F-35 in 2012 and called on aircraft manufacturer Lockheed and engine provider Pratt & Whitney to put “more skin in the game.” 

Hewson said Lockheed officials have had extensive discussions with the F-35 program office about cost-reduction measures, including stepped up pressure on all subcontractors to eliminate costs. 

There is “ongoing dialogue with our customer,” she said. “We have had a good exchange of information on what it costs to produce the aircraft and what we’re doing to continue to drive down the cost as part of a development program,” Hewson said. 

Lockheed and two of its major subcontractors Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems are spending $170 million over the next two years on manufacturing technologies that are intended to make the aircraft less expensive to produce. These initiatives, though, only will account for 20 percent of the overall cost reduction. The rest will come simply from higher production rates, which allows for greater efficiency, Hewson said. 

The $80 million cost target is for the conventional version known as F-35A to be purchased by the US Air Force and several foreign countries. The other two versions — the F-35B vertical takeoff aircraft for the Marine Corps and the UK Royal Navy, and the F-35C for the US Navy — are more expensive because they have unique design features and will be built in smaller numbers. 

Industry analysts said Lockheed is navigating through treacherous waters as it tries to bring costs down and make profits for its investors. Wall Street views the F-35 as Lockheed Martin’s “growth-engine,” noted industry consultant James McAleese, of McAleese & Associates. Even if the Defense Department’s budget is cut across the board under sequestration in 2016, many investors are bullish on Lockheed both because the company continues to pay substantial dividends to shareholders and also because of an anticipated F-35 production ramp-up, McAleese wrote in an advisory to clients.  

There are growing concerns, though, that F-35 profits are not moving in the right direction.

Lockheed Martin is “struggling with F-35 production operating margin,” said McAleese. F-35 production sales grew by more than $800 million in 2014, but operating profit was flat compared with 2013. Lockheed Martin is “under tremendous pressure to drive to double-digit F-35 production operating margin by 2017,” McAleese added. He predicts the company will resist any additional large-dollar affordability investments in F-35 “unless there is clear profit upside … and matching DoD funds.”

Investors are hopeful that Congress will approve the administration’s budget proposal for 2016 that funds 57 F-35s, he added. Lockheed Martin is “hungry for the expected jump to 57 F-35 aircraft.”

In 2014, the company produced 36 aircraft – an all-time high for a single year.

Industry analyst Byron Callan, of Capital Alpha Partners, has questioned Lockheed’s dramatic cost-reduction projections. “A key issue for the F-35 program is the ability of Lockheed Martin and its partners to reduce both unit and sustainment costs. Unit price reductions are projected, but 80 percent of these savings simply come from volume increases and learning curve, so this is something of a chicken and egg problem,” he wrote last fall in a note to investors. “The trick is to get buys in 2015-2018 so out-year prices can be realized.”

 In inflation-adjusted dollars, the F-35 still costs much more than the F-16, Callan said. Hewson’s assertion that the company will deliver F-35s below $80 million per aircraft is optimistic, he added. “We have been a bit skeptical of that claim.”  

Fiscal year 2019 will be a pivotal one for the program as it is scheduled to begin full-rate production of 175 airplanes. 

Hewson said her $46 billion company has implemented austerity measures across all corporate operations that will benefit the F-35 as well as other programs. It has squeezed $1.17 billion in savings from its subcontractors. Since 2008, it has slashed its corporate footprint by 7.5 million square feet.  

For F-35 specifically, Lockheed Martin last year unveiled a “blueprint for affordability” that included $170 million in corporate investments in manufacturing technologies. Hewson said she is unfazed by the drumbeat of negative news that often surrounds the F-35. Watchdog agencies and the Pentagon’s weapon testers have regularly published reports that highlight technical and financial challenges in the program. “What we’re seeing is nothing new on those reports,” Hewson said. She sees no “show stoppers” ahead. “This is a complex development program.” 

The next hurdle for Lockheed is to negotiate new low-rate production contracts with the Defense Department. Last year it signed “low rate initial production” contract lot eight. LRIP nine and 10 proposals were delivered to the Pentagon in January and negotiations will continue in the coming months, said Lorraine Martin, executive vice president of Lockheed Martin and general manager of the F-35 program. 

The last LRIP should be lot 11 in 2017. The promised lower prices by 2019 are pegged to full-rate production of 175 aircraft that year. Martin said the per-aircraft price has plummeted by 57 percent between LRIP one and eight. The unit price under LRIP eight was about $115 million for the airframe and engine. 

By LRIP 10, about half of the orders will be for the F-35’s foreign buyers, which currently include nine countries. “The build rate is extremely important” to meet cost goals, Martin told reporters.  

The manufacturing efficiencies proposed in the blueprint for affordability are just coming to fruition and it still remains to be seen if the savings materialize. If they work, the Defense Department has committed to invest an additional $300 million over three years, Martin said. Without this additional funding, the $80 million per-airplane cost goal might not be achieved. Under Lockheed’s projections, the manufacturing efficiencies will reduce unit cost by $10 million by 2019.

Among the initiatives is a new technique for applying coatings for the inlet bump that saves $6,000 per airplane; an automated canopy production technology that saves $3,500 per aircraft, a composite molding technique for wing tip trailing edges that reduces labor and saves $10,000 per aircraft; a new way to buy aluminum forgings in smaller pieces which cuts waste and saves $65,000 per aircraft; use of cryogenic cooling made of compressed liquid nitrogen to replace standard oil-based coolants, saving $4,000 per aircraft; and a new laser surface preparation that saves $12,000 per airplane.

“These improvements have to be tested,” said Martin. “They have to earn their way into the airplane.” 

Lockheed officials, meanwhile, are gearing up for some significant events coming up for the F-35 in 2015. Notably, a major international pilot training school is being set up at Luke Air Force Base, in Arizona. In a few years, said Martin, “It will be the largest F-35 base in the world, with 144 aircraft.”  

Italy’s and Norway’s first F-35s are scheduled to roll out in 2015, and the Marine Corps has set a July deadline to declare the F-35B “operational.” The Air Force will be next in 2016. The Navy will be taking the F-35C out to sea off the East Coast this year aboard the USS Eisenhower for flight tests. It does not plan to declare the airplane operational until 2019. 

The F-35 was supposed to have made its international air show debut last year at England’s Farnborough Air Show, but the F-35 was grounded following an engine fire. Hewson said she expects Lockheed Martin to participate in this year's Paris Air Show but did not disclose specific plans for the F-35. “We will be there as we are at many air shows. We will continue to have a presence at Paris.”

According to a Lockheed source, the company does not want the F-35’s first international air show to be in a country that is not buying the F-35, so it will probably wait to make another try at Farnborough in 2016. 

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Lockheed Martin's F-35B variant has hit yet another snag which could seriously impact the aircraft's overall ability to strike at ground targets.

Now, the fifth-generation aircraft will be unable to carry the military's latest and most advanced munitions for awhile.

Due to a design oversight, the internal weapon's bay of the F-35B is too small to carry the required load of the new Small Diameter Bomb II (SDB II), Inside Defense reports citing the Pentagon's F-35 Joint Program Office. The SDB II is a next-generation precision-strike bomb that was meant to dovetail with the F-35 program. 

The F-35B was designed to carry eight SDB IIs inside the internal weapons bay. These bombs would allow the F-35 pilot to target eight points from 40 miles away and with complete precision. The SDB IIs can also change course in-flight to follow moving targets through laser or infrared guidance systems, according to Foxtrot Alpha. 

However, the F-35B can only fit four of the required bombs in its weapons bay. The F-35B variant has a significantly smaller internal bay than the F-35A and F-35C due to the aircraft's design as a short-takeoff-vertical-landing aircraft. 

Inside Defense reports that the "Navy initially wanted to field the SDB II first on the F-35B/C but is instead bringing forward integration with the F/A-18 Super Hornet. The SDB II is an F-35 Block 4 software capability and the release of that software load has been pushed back to FY-22."

In other words, because the SDB II is included with the weapon Block 4 upgrade for the F-35, the aircraft is now likely to not field the new munitions until 2022. 

F-35 spokesman Joe DellaVedova confirmed to Inside Defense that the SDB II problem has been known since 2007 and the more difficult changes to the aircraft have already been made in order to allow it to field the munitions. 

"We've been working with the SDB II program office and their contractors since 2007," DellaVedova said. "The fit issues have been known and documented and there were larger and more substantial modifications needed to support SDB II that have already been incorporated into production F-35 aircraft." 

The F-35B variant is the Marine Corps model of the plane and 34 aircraft have already been delivered to the branch. The delay in implementing the SDB II will not affect the aircraft's ability to fly but will limit the operations that the F-35B will be able to effectively carry out. 

SEE ALSO: A top US Navy officer thinks that one of the F-35's most hyped capabilities is 'overrated'

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Lockheed Martin has released slow-motion footage of its new turreted weapon system successfully launching Hellfire and DAGR missiles. 

The YouTube video demonstrates Lockheed Martin's Long-Range Surveillance and Attack Vehicle (LRSAV) successfully carrying out ground-to-ground missile tests, held at Elgin Air Force Base in Florida last October.

During the tests the LRSAV launched a HELLFIRE missile 4 miles away from its target and the DAGR missile 2.2 miles away from the target. Both missiles locked onto and successfully hit their targets. 

The LRSAV is a turret weapon system, meaning that any target in a 360-degree area around the vehicle can be targeted. 

The LRSAV can also be linked with AH-64D Apache helicopters to remotely designate targets. 

In the demonstration, the missiles successfully locked onto their targets both before and after launch. 

The range of the LRSAV allows it to accurately engage targets from a safe standoff distance.  

Here is a missile strike at full speed. 

Here's the full video:

SEE ALSO: Here's what a rocket-propelled grenade looks like in extreme slow motion

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The future of war is now one step closer after Lockheed Martin successfully tested its latest laser weapon system. 

Lockheed's ATHENA laser weapon prototype, short for Advanced Test High Energy Asset, managed to burn through a truck's hood and destroy the vehicle's engine and drive train.

During the test,  the truck was mounted on a test platform over a mile away from the weapon. The vehicle's engine was engaged and running. ATHENA then burned through the truck's hood and melted the engine and drive train rendering the vehicle incapacitated. Critically, the laser did not cause an explosion or any collateral damage, making ATHENA a potentially effective, non-lethal weapons system. 

This ability to target and render vehicles inoperable from a significant distance — while not causing excessive damage — would have untold benefits in war zones. Cars suspected of harboring militants or vehicular bombs could be targeted from a distance. In the event that the vehicle was not a weapon, the risk of a loss of innocent life would far lower than with conventional munitions. However, if the vehicle was indeed an enemy, the combatants inside could be taken for questioning and might provide valuable human intelligence.

ATHENA is a 30-kilowatt fiber laser weapon which makes use of a process called spectrum beam combining to overcome the deficiencies in previous laser weapon systems. In the past, laser weapons have generally been inefficient due to their bulky size, their tendency to overheat, and the amount of energy needed to create a weapon strength beam. 

But as Gizmag explains, "Spectrum Beam Combining overcomes these limitations by using fiber laser modules ... The optical fibers are flexible, so the laser can be thousands of meters long for greater gain while taking up very little space because it can be coiled like a rope.

"The large surface-to-volume ratio means that it's easy to cool. In addition, fiber laser are very durable and project a high-quality beam using 50 percent less electricity than an equivalent solid-state laser," Gizmag continues. 

Although still a prototype, Lockheed has high hopes about the future of its ATHENA system. According to a press release, the company envisions the laser weapon systems being placed on military aircraft, helicopters, ships, and trucks in the future. 

SEE ALSO: The military's testing a laser that can disable a speedboat in 30 seconds

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A laser weapon made by Lockheed Martin can stop a small truck dead in its tracks from more than a mile (1.6 kilometers) away, the company announced this week.

The laser system, called ATHENA (short for Advanced Test High Energy Asset), is designed to protect military forces and key infrastructure, Lockheed Martin representatives said. During a recent field test, the laser managed to burn through and disable a small truck's engine.

The truck was not driving normally; it was on a platform with the engine and drivetrain running, Lockheed Martin representatives said. The milestone is the highest power ever documented by a laser weapon of its type, according to the company. Lockheed is expected to conduct additional tests of ATHENA. [7 Technologies That Transformed Warfare]

"Fiber-optic lasers are revolutionizing directed energy systems," Keoki Jackson, Lockheed Martin's chief technology officer, said in a statement. "This test represents the next step to providing lightweight and rugged laser-weapon systems for military aircraft, helicopters, ships and trucks."

The ATHENA system could be a boon for the military because the laser can stop ground-based adversaries from interfering with operations long before they reach the front lines, company representatives said.

The laser weapon is based on a similar system called Area Defense Anti-Munitions (also developed by Lockheed Martin), which focuses on airborne threats. The 30-kilowatt Accelerated Laser Demonstration Initiative — the laser in ATHENA itself — was also made by Lockheed.

The recent test was the first time that such a laser was tested in the field, the company said. The Accelerated Laser Demonstration Initiative is a multifiber laser created through a technique called spectral beam combining. Essentially, the system takes multiple lasers and mashes them into one. Lockheed representatives said this beam "provides greater efficiency and lethality than multiple individual 10-kilowatt lasers used in other systems."

Last year, Lockheed also highlighted laser defense capabilities in a demonstration test between two boats that were located about 1 mile apart. The vessels, described as "military-grade," were stopped less than 30 seconds after the laser burned through the boat's rubber hull.

Follow Elizabeth Howell @howellspace, or Live Science on Twitter @livescience. We're also on Facebook& Google+.Original article on Live Science.

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(Reuters) - Lockheed Martin Corp <lmt.n>, the Pentagon's No. 1 weapons supplier, reported a 6 percent fall in quarterly profit, partly due to fewer aircraft deliveries.

Weapons makers, including Lockheed and Raytheon Co <rtn.n>, have increased focus on international markets and the cybersecurity business as weak U.S. defense spending hits revenue.

Sales in Lockheed's aeronautics business, its largest, fell 7.4 percent to $3.13 billion in the first quarter ended March 29. The business makes the F-35, the radar-evading jet that at about $400 billion is the world's most expensive weapons program.

Revenue from Lockheed's information systems as well as missiles and fire control units also fell.

The company raised its 2015 earnings forecast to $10.85-$11.15 per share from $10.80-$11.10, and reiterated its revenue forecast of $43.50 billion-$45.00 billion.

Analysts on average were expecting full-year earnings of $11.14 per share and sales of $44.65 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Lockheed's net income fell to $878 million, or $2.74 per share, in the quarter, from $933 million, or $2.87 per share, a year earlier. [ID:nPn7CMMVk]

Revenue fell 5.1 percent to $10.11 billion.

Up to Monday's close of $196.80, Lockheed's shares had risen 22 percent in the past 52 weeks, compared with a 12 percent rise in the S&P 500 index <.SPX>.

(Reporting by Sagarika Jaisinghani in Bengaluru; Editing by Simon Jennings)

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The F-35 is having significant problems with one of its most important components: the engine. 

According to reports from both the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the Department of Defense's Inspector General, the Pratt & Whitney engines designed for the F-35 program have encountered a number of problems. 

In a report issued on April 27, the Pentagon's Inspector General noted 61 instances in which F-35 engines were didn't meet the Pentagon's regulatory standards for the F-35 program during an inspection.

The nonconformities were wide-ranging and affected almost every level of engine development. They included problems with the supply line and project management, as well as mechanical issues and software deficiencies.

"Based on those nonconformities, we identified systemic findings in the following areas," the Inspector General report notes. "[P]rogram management oversight, critical safety item compliance, continuous improvement, risk management, supplier management, and software quality management."

The GAO report from April 14 echoes the Inspector General's concerns.  "[T]he F-35 system reliability has been limited by poor engine reliability which will take additional time and resources to achieve reliability goals," GOA wrote. 

"We believe that DOD has a long way to go to achieve its engine reliability goals as engine reliability at this time is extremely poor," the GOA report continued. "Reliability is a function of how well a system design performs over a specified period of time without failure, degradation, or need of repair. Poor reliability with the engine has limited the program’s overall reliability progress."

The suspect reliability of the F-35's engines has led to a decrease in overall flight hours for the plane since more frequent maintenance is required. 

According to Bloomberg Business, the F-35B variant flew for an average of 47 hours instead of a pre-determined 90 hours before reaching a point where it could no longer safely operate due to "engine design issues." The rate was even worse for the F-35A and C variants, which flew for an average of 25 hours instead of the intended 120 hours.

However, Pratt & Whitney disagree with both the GAO report and the report from the Inspector General. Matthew Bates, a spokesman for the company, told Business Insider via email that the "DoD IG report is based on their audit in November of 2014." 

"Since then, P&W has worked aggressively to address the DoD IG’s findings and corrective actions. This was an audit of P&W’s quality system and F135 contractual adherence, not an audit of F135 product quality. None of these findings had any impact on the product performance."

Pratt & Whitney is scheduled to complete all necessary changes highlighted in the Inspector General's report by July. 

Pratt and Whitney have also disagreed with the conclusions from the GAO report. According to the company, GAO incorrectly assessed engine reliability and failed to account for the new engines that the company has released. 

"Our current F135 CTOL engine achieves and exceeds specification requirements (147% of required levels). The reliability of the F135 STOVL engine meets 119% of its current requirement," Bates told BI. "The report incorrectly assessed engine reliability, as it did not account for new designs that have been validated and are being incorporated into production and fleet engines."

On April 22, the House Armed Services Tactical Air and Land Forces subcommittee released a proposal for an independent investigation into "reliability, growth and cost reduction efforts" for the Pratt & Whitney F-35 engine. The investigation is scheduled to finish by March 16, 2016.

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Earlier this month, the US Air Force told Reuters that America's most expensive weapons system ever built is on track for "initial combat use" by September 2016. 

Designed and manufactured at Lockheed Martin's massive production facility in Fort Worth, Texas, the F-35 Lightning II can carry an impressive 18,000 pounds of lethal ammunition.

Below is a photo of the F-35A (one of the three F-35 variant aircraft) and its weapons suite:

Lockheed Martin's F-35 program includes three variant aircraft (the F-35A, F-35B, and F-35C), each designed to meet the specific needs of America's sister service branches and a number of foreign military buyers such as the United Kingdom, Australia, Netherlands, Norway, Japan, South Korea, and Israel.

Lockheed Martin says that each F-35A, also referred to as the Conventional Takeoff and Landing (CTOL) jet, costs $108 million (including the engine) and is the most requested of the three aircraft. Thus far, approximately 65 of the anticipated 1,763 F-35A jets have been delivered to the Department of Defense.

The F-35 variants carry a similar arsenal except that the F-35A is the only variant to feature an internal cannon, which is located on the left side of the jet between the cockpit and wing.

Here's an infographic of the weapons the jets are designed to carry:

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America's most expensive weapons system ever built is on track for "initial combat use" by September 2016.

Business Insider recently toured Lockheed Martin's massive production facility in Fort Worth, Texas, where the three F-35 Lightning II variant aircraft are designed and manufactured.

The $400 billion and counting F-35 program has so far delivered 140 of the anticipated 2,443 jets to the US Department of Defense and five aircraft to foreign military buyers.

Here is a look at the unique capabilities of the F-35 variant aircraft:

The lightest of the jets is the F-35A:

The F-35B is in the middle at 14.3 feet tall and weighs 32,300 pounds.

The F-35C is the tallest and the heaviest:

The F-35A and F-35B have the same wingspan and nearly the same length:

Designed for the Navy, the F-35C features longer wings to create drag for the jet to slowly land on aircraft carriers:

The F-35C has another unique wing design:

The F-35A is the only variant that has an internal gun; aside from that, the jets have similar designs:

All three variants are coated with a special material to avoid radar:

The F-35 jets have serious firepower:

The F-35C carries 19,750 pounds of fuel, the most fuel of the variant aircraft. All jets have the capability to be refueled in air:

The F-35A is refueled differently:

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Lieutenant Colonel Christine Mau, a U.S. Air Force pilot who was part of the first all-female combat sortie over Afghanistan in 2011, this week became the first woman to fly the Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 jet, the Air Force said on Wednesday.

Mau, deputy commander of the 33rd Fighter Wing Operations Group, on Tuesday completed her first training flight in the single-seat stealth fighter after 14 virtual training missions in a simulator, said spokeswoman Lieutenant Hope Cronin.

Mau joined 87 F-35A pilots who have been trained over the last four years at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida.

"It felt great to get airborne. The jet flies like a dream, and seeing the systems interact is impressive," Mau said in a statement.

"It wasn't until I was taxiing to the runway that it really struck me that I was on my own in the jet," Mau said. "I had a chase aircraft, but there was no weapons system officer or instructor pilot sitting behind me, and no one in my ear like in simulators."

She said flying with the F-35's complex helmet, which fuses all sensor data from the jet on a mounted display on the helmet rather than in the jet's cockpit, took some adjustment.

Women have served in combat aviation roles in a wide range of U.S. aircraft for over 20 years, but they still represent only a small fraction of U.S. military pilots.

"Flying is a great equalizer,” said Mau. “The plane doesn’t know or care about your gender as a pilot, nor do the ground troops who need your support. You just have to perform. That’s all anyone cares about when you’re up there – that you can do your job, and that you do it exceptionally well."

While Mau was serving in Afghanistan, she was part of an all-female team that included pilots, weapons systems officers, and mission planners in Kunar Valley, according to the Air Force Times. Her team worked to provide air support to Afghan and coalition forces.

Mau told the Military Officers Association of America that she has wanted to fly jets since she was a little girl growing up near a Marine Corps air station in California.

Before she trained as an F-35 pilot, Mau served as an F-15E Strike Eagle pilot, according to the Air Force.

NBC News notes that the F-35 is "often described as one of the most technologically complex planes ever built."

(Reuters reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Ken Wills)

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The United Kingdom’s former defense chief is using some colorful language to criticize the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

Nick Harvey, who served as armed forces minister from 2010 to 2012, recently said of the fifth-generation stealth fighter jet, “You could argue it was already one of the biggest white elephants in history a long time ago,” according to an article by The Independent, a national newspaper based in London.

He added there was “not a cat in hell’s chance” the Joint Strike Fighter would be combat-ready by 2018, the article states. In response, the Ministry of Defense defended the schedule and said the relatively few F-35s in the British fleet will reach war-fighting capability by that time.

The Joint Strike Fighter is the Pentagon’s most expensive weapons program, estimated to cost about $400 billion to purchase 2,457 aircraft for the Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy.

U.S. allies are expected to buy hundreds more. Britain, for example, wants nearly 140 of the planes — the largest planned international F-35 order. Some 130 of the aircraft have been built so far, including three for the U.K.

The F-35 is designed to replace such aircraft as the F-16 Fighting Falcon fighter, A-10 Warthog attack plane, F/A-18 Hornet fighter and AV-8B Harrier jump jet, a variant of which is flown by the British air force.

Behind schedule and over budget from original projections, the acquisition effort has struggled to develop technologies, from the engine and tires to the helmet-mounted display and weaponry. Complicating matters, the hardware and software must be built for three versions of the aircraft, the F-35A, F-35B and F-35C.

Officials have said the program is making progress in reducing cost overruns and developmental challenges.

Yet even US Air Force Gen. Herbert “Hawk” Carlisle, head of Air Combat Command, recently acknowledged the F-35A will only offer limited close air support when it begins operational flights next year because it will initially lack the large area, high-definition synthetic aperture radar known as “BIG SAR” and a pinpoint glide bomb known as the Small Diameter Bomb II, or SDB-II.

“Those are systems that are going to be coming onto the airplane in later blocks,” he said.

The Marine Corps’ F-35B jump-set variant is scheduled to enter so-called initial operational capability, or IOC, later this year, followed by the Air Force’s F-35A conventional version in the latter half of 2016, followed by the Navy’s F-35C aircraft carrier variant in 2019. (The Marines, however, will reach the milestone in part by relying on software that doesn’t integrate a full suite of weapons.)

The Defense Department plans spend $11 billion to buy 57 F-35s in the next fiscal year, beginning Oct. 1, up from $8.6 billion to purchase 38 of the aircraft in the current year. US lawmakers this week will debate legislation to authorize an additional $1 billion to buy six more F-35Bs than the Pentagon requested.

The additional aircraft were listed on a Marine Corps list of priorities that didn’t receive funding in the Pentagon’s spending plan for next year, according to a fact-sheet on the legislation from Rep. William “Mac” Thornberry, R-Texas, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.

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"This room is the most advanced painting facility in the world," retired US Air Force pilot and F-35 simulation instructor Rick Royer told me as we toured Lockheed Martin's highly secure plane facility in Fort Worth, Texas.

The Aircraft Final Finishes bay is where America's most expensive weapons system gets coated with a highly classified stealth technology, which makes it invisible to radar.

After the jet is assembled and before it can take flight, three laser-guided robots apply the Radar-Absorbing Material (RAM) to each of Lockheed Martin's F-35 Lightning II variant aircraft.

Here's all we know (and can share) about how the F-35 gets its invisibility cloak:

First, each F-35 variant is assembled in Lockheed Martin's mile-long production facility.

Once an F-35 is ready to leave the production line, it is carefully rolled ...

... into the windowless, multistory, 226,000-square-foot Aircraft Final Finishes (AFF) complex.

The jet is placed in one of two paint bays where three laser-guided robots are programmed to spray RAM on all surfaces except the tails and various parts that are coated at a separate area called the Robotic Component Finishing System.

According to an SAE International report, the first coating process was completed on a F-35B in 2008 and took three days.

Lockheed Martin's AFF facility services seven planes a month and is expected to increase to 17 jets by 2020.

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