WASHINGTON — Lockheed Martin has decided not to pursue a competition for a new Navy training jet, the company told Breaking Defense.
“Following formal notification to the U.S. Navy, Lockheed Martin has decided not to pursue the UJTS [Undergraduate Jet Training System] solicitation after careful analysis,” the company said in statement. “We will continue to focus on delivering innovative training solutions and seek opportunities to strengthen our partnership with the U.S. Navy. We remain confident the T-50 platform is a leading-edge fighter trainer with strong capabilities and future potential.”
Lockheed’s surprise exit from the training jet competition — where the world’s largest defense contractor was poised to bid the TF-50N in partnership with Korea Aerospace Industries — narrows the field of competitors to three, and comes shortly after the service released a final request for proposals (RFP) to industry.
Asked why the company elected not to pursue the bid, a Lockheed spokeperson said the company “conducted a rigorous assessment of the UJTS solicitation and determined our offering would not be the best solution for this program due to the required level of U.S. content and other reasons.”
The UJTS decision did not come up during a Lockheed financial earnings call this morning, where elsewhere company executives disclosed a $125 million charge to the F-16 fighter program due to “production performance and development delays,” as well as a $55 million hit to the C-130 transport aircraft program attributed to supplier constraints.
Other Competitors Talk Up Aircraft At SAS
The UJTS competition is meant to replace the Navy’s aging T-45 Goshawk. The RFP, released in March, capped engineering and manufacturing development at $1.8 billion, while setting specific spending limits for early stages of the program. The Navy expects to order up to 216 aircraft, according to Aviation Week.
Unlike the T-45, the UJTS platform is not being designed to land on aircraft carriers. It will also not be required to conduct field carrier landing practice (FCLP) to touch down, where pilots land on a runway similar to how they would on an aircraft carrier. Instead, the aircraft will only have to support FCLP to wave off; as a result, competitors must share “unique aircraft simulation capabilities” to prepare aviators for carrier landings, according to the Navy’s RFP.
At least when it comes to the UJTS program, Lockheed notably kept a low profile this week at the Sea Air Space conference in National Harbor, Md., one of the largest annual Navy-focused conferences. Other competitors, however, were more than happy to discuss their bids.
Textron subsidiary Beechcraft in partnership with Leonardo, for example, is offering the M-346N. Travis Tyler, president and CEO of Textron’s aviation defense unit, highlighted the Navy’s current use of Textron aircraft like the T-6A Texan II and T-54A Marlin II, saying in an interview with Breaking Defense that the service “is our No.1 priority.”
“And we have this incredible airplane that’s proven, mature,” Tyler said of the M-346N on the sidelines of the Sea Air Space on Monday. “We think it’s the right fit for the Navy to continue to train before they ultimately go on to the fighters.”
Asked about the RFP, Tyler said, “We were prepared. We wouldn’t be in this competition with this airplane if we didn’t think it was the right fit,” he added. “So, we’re excited.”
SNC, for its part, is offering its Freedom Trainer, a design the company has previously pioneered but has not entered production. The firm has teamed with other industry heavyweights like General Atomics and Northrop Grumman, and is specifically crafting its bid to be capable of field carrier landing practice to touch down.
“We have a very solid design we put together in support of pursuing this,” Jon Piatt, SNC executive vice president for ISR, aviation and security, said in an interview with Breaking Defense ahead of the conference. Touting years of company investment in the Freedom Trainer concept, Piatt asserted that the aircraft is purposely designed for Navy requirements.
“What sets us apart is we really are taking a straight, clean look at the requirements. We’ve ensured that some adoptions that we’re making now in our current design, of the digital design that we have is modified to be aligned to those requirements, while we’re also continuing to be very conscious and cognizant about the life cycle cost,” he said.
Still, Piatt did raise one area of concern: the program’s budget cap, about which Piatt said he felt “not good.” He noted that the budget ceiling also entails the delivery of several aircraft.
“I am a little bit surprised that for something this important, for the next generation of trainer, that the Navy would make a decision to put a cap on a development program that is already going to be hamstrung by budget constraints in the first two years of what has currently been budgeted,” he said. “It’s a big challenge. It could be a big obstacle.”
Boeing, which is bidding for UJTS with the T-7A Red Hawk under development with the US Air Force, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Lockheed’s partner KAI could not be immediately reached for comment.
Valerie Insinna contributed to this report.
