The Air Force on Nov. 5 awarded Lockheed Martin [LMT] a contract potentially worth nearly $10.9 billion to modernize the fighter through October 2031 under the Advanced Raptor Enhancement & Sustainment (ARES) program.
“This contract vehicle provides support for the necessary supplies and services to sustain and modernize the F-22 Raptor, including modernization hardware kit procurement and services such as upgrades, enhancements and fixes, as well as performance-based logistics services,” the Air Force said in a contract announcement on Nov. 5.
The Ogden Air Logistics Center at Hill AFB, Utah is the site of the only F-22 modernization line to upgrade the aircraft, and 50 percent of F-22-related maintenance is for repairing the low observable stealth coatings damaged when personnel open up the plane for routine maintenance, Lockheed Martin has said.
Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown has said that the service is not looking to replace its 187 F-22s one-for-one with the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) family of systems, but rather will determine mission sets for NGAD to generate NGAD requirements numbers (Defense Daily, Aug. 22).
The Air Force plans to neck down from seven fighter types–the Lockheed Martin F-16, F-35A, and F-22 and the Boeing [BA] F-15C, F-15D, F-15E and A-10–to “four plus one,” NGAD, the F-35A, the A-10, the F-15EX, and the F-16 or a possible replacement.