|
The US Air Force exercised a contract option in late April by awarding Lockheed Martin $117.6 million to add one additional F/A-22 aircraft and associated equipment to the Lot 3 low-rate initial production contract awarded earlier in the month. This brings the number of F/A-22s to be procured in Lot 3 to twenty-one and moves the total number of production F/A-22s on order to forty-four. The opportunity to procure an additional aircraft in Lot 3 is the result of the Air Force’s buy to budget acquisition strategy approved by the DoD in September 2001, which is still in effect. The strategy permits the Air Force to maximize the total number of F/A-22s procured within the program’s approved budget cap. Specific funds for the twenty-first F/A-22 became available, in part, by recent gains in supplier confidence, which, in turn, led to reduced vender cost quotes. The associated savings, when combined with funds |
