The Defense Department on Dec. 17 selected Japan and Australia to provide the Asia-Pacific portion of its global F-35 airframe and engine sustainment posture.
Japan is to provide airframe maintenance, repair, overhaul and upgrade (MRO&U) capability for the northern Asia-Pacific while Australia will manage the airframe posture for the southern half of the region. Both capabilities are required no later than early 2018. Australia will also provide initial heavy engine maintenance capability for the Asia-Pacific by early 2018 with Japan providing additional capability at least 3-to-5 years later.
DoD has divided its global F-35 maintenance posture into three regions: United States, Europe and Asia-Pacific. DoD announced the week of Dec. 8 that Italy, the United Kingdom, Turkey, Norway and the Netherlands were selected for the European region. DoD split up maintenance work among airframe and engine work.
These initial MRO&U assignments will support near-term, overseas operations and maintenance (O&M) and will be reviewed and updated in approximately five years. These assignments do not preclude the opportunity for other F-35 partners and foreign military sales (FMS) customers, including those assigned initial airframe and engine capabilities, to participate and be assigned additional future sustainment work. This includes component and system repairs as the fleet and its global presence grows.
Along with Italy, Japan also invested its own money into building a first assembly and checkout (FACO) facility for its F-35 work. F-35 Program Executive Officer (PEO) Air Force Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan said the week of Dec. 8 Italy invested over $1 billion of its own money into its FACO, which he said benefits the entire F-35 enterprise because the rest of the partners and Foreign Military Sales (FMS) nations do not have to bear that cost. While he did not say the week of Dec. 8 that Italy was selected specifically because it built a FACO, he did say it contributed to the nation’s “best value” in the selection process.
Unlike Italy’s facility, Bogdan said on Dec. 17 Japan’s FACO will be built vertically, rather than horizontally, due to less available land for in the archipelago nation. He said it will feature elevators to carry aircraft up and down levels.
Bogdan also detailed Dec. 17 how the regional F-35 MRO&U facilities will be managed. Speaking specifically of Japan, Bogdan said Japan has a contract with F-35 prime contractor Lockheed Martin [LMT] to help establish the FACO while a host of companies from Japan’s industrial base are also participating. Bogdan said Japan will select and identify which of its industry partners will participate.
When Japan’s FACO is up and running, Bogdan said it will be run by a partner from its industrial base, overseen by Lockheed Martin for the technical aspects of building planes and overseen by DoD for security, much like how Italy’s FACO will be run. Italy’s FACO opened in July 2013. The first delivery from Japan’s FACO is expected by December 2015.
Alenia Aermacchi, Bogdan said, will run Italy’s FACO. This is the only contractor so far who has been selected to run a FACO, he said. As DoD was determining which nations would be selected for regional F-35 MRO&U work, Bodgan said the partner and FMS nations had an opportunity to identify companies from its respective industrial bases that would both desire to do this work and have the capability and capacity to perform.
Bodgan said after being forwarded the names of those companies, the F-35 Joint Program Office (JPO) did its evaluations based on the companies provided. JPO then made its recommendations to DoD, which selected its “preferred industry partner.” Nations awarded MRO&U work were not required to select DoD’s preferred industry partner, Bogdan said. Bids were not solicited for regional MRO&U work. A JPO spokesman couldn’t say on Dec. 17 whether Alenia Aermacchi was DoD’s preferred industry partner.
Part of setting up its global F-35 supply chain, DoD in 2015 will start moving into components, the repair of certain systems and warehousing. There is much work still to be had, Bogdan said the week of Dec. 8, on the F-35 global sustainment posture and DoD will go through a similar process over the next few years of assigning that capability to those areas and partners that provide the best value for doing that kind of work.
Each nation that sets up a regional capability, like Turkey, Norway and the Netherlands for engines in Europe, will be guaranteed a minimum amount of work, equivalent to how many airplanes they will buy. This is to provide some sort of return on investment. Beyond the minimum, partner nations will then compete for that “above core workload” of their region.
Alenia Aermacchi is a division of Finmeccanica. The F-35 is developed by Lockheed Martin with subcontractors BAE Systems and Northrop Grumman [NOC].