'When need to be replaced, what am I going to replace them with?' Holmes said during the annual McAleese Defense Programs Conference at the time. The Air Force is the largest customer for the aircraft, with hopes to procure 1,763 F-35 A-variants.īut in March 2020, Holmes hinted that there may be some wiggle room as the service assesses its inventory needs. Since the inception of the Joint Strike Fighter program, the Air Force has maintained that older Falcons should be replaced by the fifth-gen F-35 Lightning II, also made by Lockheed. 'I want to be able to build something new and different that's not the F-16, that has some of those capabilities, but gets there faster and features a digital approach,' he said Feb. Lockheed moved its production line to its South Carolina plant in 2019 to centralize its manufacturing of F-16s, which have been updated since the last jet was delivered to the Air Force in 2005.īut Brown said the F-16 may not be the best option.
Roper told Aviation Week in January that the Air Force is weighing buying new F-16 fighters from Lockheed Martin as 'a capacity solution' to increase its jet inventory.
