Flight International – 11 June 2019

54 | Flight International | 11-17 June 2019 flightglobal.com

PARIS

Special report

GARRETT REIM FORT WORTH

European customers looking for a stealth fighter today have just one option, but politics,

budgets and prospective rivals are threatening to narrow Lockheed Martin’s sales window

Eyes on the prize

UK ambitions to develop a sixth-generation combat aircraft, dubbed Tempest, might eventually see it cut back its F-35 plans

Crown Copyright

W

ith the Pentagon wavering over

the number of F-35s it wants to

buy, Lockheed Martin has

turned its gaze on Europe. The

company is bullish on selling the aircraft to

America’s European allies. It believes that by

2030 there will be more than 500 F-35 Light-

ning II stealth fighters deployed in Europe –

more than the number of Eurofighter Ty-

phoons currently in operation worldwide.

“With Finland, Poland and Switzerland

evaluating the airplane right now that could be

a number that is approaching 700 airplanes by

that same timeframe,” says Steve Over, direc-

tor of F-35 international business develop-

ment. “We are in dialogue with almost every

free country around the world.”

The F-35 stands alone as Europe’s only op-

tion for a stealth fighter. The Franco-German

Future Combat Air System (FCAS) project re-

mains two decades away and the UK’s Tem-

pest is planned to come only a few years earli-

er, in 2035. Thus, Lockheed is feeling

confident about its market position.

“So far, we’ve never lost a competition with

the F-35,” says Over. “We are batting 1,000.”

But Germany’s defence ministry booted the

F-35 from its Panavia Tornado replacement pro-

gramme in January 2019 when it leaked that it

would only consider the Boeing F/A-18E/F

Super Hornet and Eurofighter. Lockheed de-

clines to comment on the German programme,

but its remarks suggest it does not believe it is of-

ficially out of the running.

The Luftwaffe aside, other European coun-

tries are taking a hard look at the stealth fighter,

says the F-35 Joint Program Office (JPO). It ex-

pects to submit a sales proposal to Finland in

August and an offer to Switzerland in Novem-

ber, said Vice Admiral Mathias Winter, execu-

tive officer of the JPO, in an April hearing be-

fore the US House Armed Services Committee.

Additional interest is coming from Greece, Po-

land, Romania and Spain, he says.