Article Posted on : - Dec 14, 2011

The F-35 Lightening II fighter.

WASHINGTON (BNS): The US Defence Department has awarded a contract to Lockheed Martin to provide F-35 fighter jets to the US Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.

The $4.01 billion contract, awarded on December 9, is a modification of an earlier contract under which Lockheed will deliver a total of 30 F-35 supersonic stealth planes to the US military.

The Low Rate Initial Production Lot V contract makes provision for 21 Conventional Take Off and Landing (CTOL) variant of the Joint Strike Fighter for the US Air Force, 6 carrier variants for the Navy and 3 Short Take Off and Vertical Landing (STOVL) variant for the Marine Corps.

In addition, the modification provides for associated ancillary mission equipment and flight test instrumentation for those aircraft, and flight test instrumentation for the United Kingdom, the US Department of Defence said.

Majority of the contract work will be carried out at Fort Worth, Texas, El Segundo, California and Warton, UK.

The contract is expected to be completed in January 2014.