LOCKHEED Martin has announced a $1.6 million contract for a new warehouse at Williamtown RAAF to hold "replenishment spares" for F-35A Joint Strike Fighter aircraft across Australia and the Indo-Pacific.
Lockheed Martin said the contract had gone to BAE Systems Australia. The building would be "co-located" on the Williamtown RAAF base.
"The establishment of a regional warehousing and distribution network for the Indo-Pacific will increase F-35 operational resilience for Australia and regional F-35 operators, including US forces deployed in the Indo-Pacific," Lockheed Martin Australia CEO Warren McDonald said last week.
"The regional warehouse will create approximately 20 immediate jobs as part of a growth path to more than 500 long-term F-35 sustainment jobs in future years."
The F-35A has faced a barrage of criticism from its earliest stages but Lockheed Martin has said in recent project updates that it is meeting or bettering a range of targets for reliablity and maintenance.
Mr McDonald said the Williamtown warehouse would play an important part in the Global Sustainment System (GSS) for the F-35 program, for which Lockheed Martin was the prime contractor.
BAE Systems Australia executive Andrew Gresham said the warehouse contract helped "secure the region as a nationally important aerospace hub".
Lockheed Martin said Australia's participation in the F-35 program had "delivered significant benefits".
It said more than $3 billion in production and sustainment contracts had gone to more than 70 Australian businesses.
It said the F-35 fleet was continuing to expand, with plans for more than 300 planes permanently in the Indo-Pacific by 2035.
The RAAF says the first F-35A began service in Australia in 2018, with 3 Squadron at Williamtown using the planes from 2021.
Australia expects to have 72 F-35s operational by the end of this year, with aircraft housed at Tindal RAAF in the Northern Territory as well as Williamtown.
A recent Lockheed Martin update shows more than 840 Joint Strike Fighters have been delivered to the US and eight other nations using the plane. The various craft have collectively logged more than 560,000 flight hours. More than 1755 pilots and almost 13,000 maintenance crew have been trained.
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