The CEO of defense giant Lockheed Martin said Wednesday that the company is moving past a dispute with the Pentagon over a primer defect on its F-35 joint strike fighters and that the issue is “not a big show-stopper.”
The majority of the 200 or so F-35s with the production defect causing corrosion around fastener holes will be repaired within two years, Marillyn Hewson said during an investor conference.
“It’s not a big show-stopper, it’s not a big significant issue, and we’ve got to plan with our Joint Program Office, our customer, on how we’ll go back and fix the aircraft that were delivered to address it,” she said. “In fact, it’s not a safety flight issue, so it can be done over the next couple of years.”
A dispute over the defect caused the Pentagon to halt deliveries of the fifth-generation fighter jets, which are Lockheed’s flagship weapons system and account for about 25 percent of its revenues. Aircraft deliveries resumed in early May.
“As a complex development program, whether it’s this program or any other program, things are going to happen in the production line and we’re going to address them as they come along,” Hewson said. “The whole primer issue that you mentioned was a workmanship issue that we address, and we’re well past that now.”
Lockheed has sold 300 of the aircraft into service, and they operate at 14 military bases.
