:

UK Eyes Cutting F-35 Sustainment Costs

By Marc Selinger

Tuesday, March 27th, 2018

SHARE:

UK Eyes Cutting F-35 Sustainment Costs

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Photo by Lockheed Martin.

The United Kingdom is looking for ways to drive down the cost of operating and sustaining its F-35 Joint Strike Fighter fleet now that the program is transitioning from its initial development phase to significant production quantities, a UK defense official said March 27.“We must maintain an absolutely laser-like focus on keeping those costs down,” said Stephen Lovegrove, who, as the permanent secretary of the UK defense ministry, is roughly the British counterpart to U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Pat Shanahan.…

Senators Push Navy Against Single Destroyer Request In FY ’27

The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) and the two senators from Maine last week pushed back on Navy officials for only requesting one Arleigh Burke-class destroyer (DDG-51) […]

Navy Looks To Eventually Assemble Battleship At HII Newport News; Faces More Dem Opposition

The Navy told lawmakers this week it found a dry dock at HII’s [HII] Newport News Shipbuilding shipyard it thinks can use for final assembly of the new Trump-class battleship […]

Navy Leaders Downplay Looking At Foreign Navy Shipbuilding Amid Lawmaker Objections

The Navy’s top leaders this week seemed to downplay and back down on the service potentially using foreign shipyards to build U.S. Navy ships or buying foreign designed warships overseas […]

Army

Senate Defense Appropriators See ‘Risk’ With Army’s Reconciliation Plan To Fund Munitions Increase

The Senate’s top defense appropriators cited concern this week with the Army’s request to fund the majority of its large increase to munitions procurement in fiscal year 2027 through the […]