It's official: US Air Force to buy Turkish F-35s
WASHINGTON — After a year of speculation about what would happen to Turkey’s F-35s after the country was ousted from the joint strike fighter program last year, the Defense Department gave its definitive answer Monday evening in a characteristically anticlimactic manner — through its daily contract announcements.
The U.S. Air Force will officially buy eight F-35A conventional takeoff and landing jets originally built by Lockheed Martin for Turkey as part of a $862 million contract modification than also contains an additional six F-35As built for the Air Force and modifications that will bring the Turkish jets in line with the U.S. configuration.
The contract modification uses funding from the fiscal year 2020 budget to pay for the jets, which roll off the production line as part of Lot 14. The Pentagon and Lockheed Martin finalized a deal for lots 12, 13 and 14 in October 2019, which set the price of an Lot 14 A model at $77.9 million per copy.
Turkey had planned to buy 100 F-35As over the course of the program, but was ejected from the program last July after accepting the S-400 air defense system from Russia after repeated warnings from U.S. officials. At that point, Turkey’s first F-35s had already rolled off the production line and its pilots and maintainers were training to fly and fix them stateside alongside U.S. personnel at Luke Air Force Base, Ariz., and Eglin Air Force Base, Fla. However, they were never officially delivered to Turkey.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/official-us-air-force-buy-222752037.html
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