LONDON — The home of Britain's new F-35 fleet is to have a £167 million (US $235 million) makeover to prepare the Royal Air Force (RAF) base for the arrival of the strike jets in 2018, according to the Ministry of Defence (MoD).
The base at RAF Marham, eastern England, is to get bespoke logistics, training and maintenance and final finishes centers in a £142 million deal with aircraft prime contractor Lockheed Martin, the MoD said Thursday.
As part of the deal, BAE Systems has been subcontracted by Lockheed Martin to manage the project. That contract is worth £118 million. In turn, construction company Balfour Beatty has been contracted by BAE to actually build the facilities.
Some £25 million has already been spent by the MoD readying the base for the new facilities, with old buildings being demolished and cabling work undertaken.
The buildings are scheduled to be handed over in 2018 to align with the expected arrival at the base of the first squadron of F-35B Lightning II jets destined to be operated by the RAF and the Royal Navy.
The infrastructure contracts are an essential part of the program to support Britain's F-35B operations.
With the infrastructure contracts in place, the MoD now must decide how it will upcoming decision expected later this year is how the MoD parcel out contracts to run the maintenance and operations once the facilities are in place.
It's not strictly a competition, but BAE and Lockheed — partners in the development and building of the F-35 — have been vying for control of the maintenance effort for a long time.
The MoD declined to discuss the issue.
A Lockheed Martin spokeswoman said: "The decision about who will operate the new facilities once the construction phase is completed is a matter for the MoD."
Industry executives here said maintenance work on the platform could be worth billions of pounds over the life of the program.
Doug Barrie, a senior air analyst at the London-based think tank International Institute of Strategic Studies, said the importance of the decision is not just about the money.
"Of course it is partly about finance, we are looking at a lot of money, but it also comes back to the question of sovereign capabilities and the need to be able to do the maintenance in-country," he said.
The outcome is likely complicated by US government sensitivities around access to some of the technologies involved in the F-35.
BAE took the announcement of the infrastructure contracts to remind people it had been providing contractor support of RAF jets for more than 10 years.
"We have a proven pedigree in delivering maintenance and support to the RAF fast jets fleets at bases throughout the UK, including RAF Marham, where we have been supporting the operation of the Tornado GR4 fleet for the last decade," BAE said in a news release.
The British said they would eventually buy 138 F-35s in last year's Strategic Defence and Security Review but so far have only signed for eight aircraft.
Negotiations are expected to conclude soon on an order for a further six aircraft as part of the LRIP 9 contract being negotiated by the Pentagon and Lockheed Martin.
Andrew Chuter is the United Kingdom correspondent for Defense News.
