Although many more C-130J aircraft are needed, Lockheed Martin hasn’t yet made the business case for a multiyear production contract, Air Force acquisition executive David Van Buren told reporters June 18. The threshold to sign up a contractor for a multiyear deal is a 10 percent reduction in costs, but the C-130J maker hasn’t shown it can do that. Van Buren chalked that up to government negotiators who have already gotten the C-130J price down about as far as it will go. The taxpayers are already getting “a fair and reasonable price,” making another 10 percent cut elusive, he said. Jack Crisler, Lockheed’s vice president for air mobility, told the Daily Report that the US government needs at least another 98 to 115 C-130Js. The company hopes to offer a proposal in September that will tick down the cost by the requisite 10 percent, he said.
When Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Air Force Gen. Dan Caine described the 150 aircraft used in Operation Absolute Resolve, the mission to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, he referenced many by name, including the F-35 and F-22 fighters and B-1 bomber. Not specified, however, were “remotely piloted drones,” among them a secretive aircraft spotted and photographed returning to Puerto…
