Lockheed Martin chief operating officer, Frank A. St. John, has said the company stands ready to help Ukrainian pilots fly and maintain its F-16 fighter jets if NATO states agree to send them to help the country against russian aggression.
"We are standing by, ready to not only backfill need as it arises with new F-16 builds but also any modifications to F-16s as well as training, equipment and systems," representative of US defense manufacturer said at a meeting with the media before the start of the Paris Air Show, the Financial Times reports.
Read more: Ukraine’s Defense Minister Reveals Details of How Ukrainian F-16 Pilots Will Get Training
This is due to the fact that Ukraine will receive F-16 and these aircraft will be operated by the Air Force for a long time.
Moreover, the company is already ready to provide all the necessary assistance in the acquisition and maintenance of aircraft, and later it will be about new jets as well as modernization of existing ones. At the same time, Frank St. John noted that he is confident in the fairly fast pace of mastery of the F-16 by Ukrainian specialists, because a significant list of Lockheed Martin products, for example the most famous HIMARS and Javelin, are already actively used by the Armed Forces of Ukraine and were also mastered in a very short time.
As the top manager of the company emphasized, the creation of such a center in Ukraine will still not happen until victory. Moreover, according to Frank A. St. John, other countries bordering Ukraine are being considered for its placement.
Defense Express notes that for Lockheed Martin, although Ukraine is a huge potential market, F-16 operators include Poland and Romania, and future buyer countries with firm contracts include Bulgaria and Slovakia. In this situation, on the part of Ukraine, it will be necessary to make quite significant efforts in order for Lockheed Martin to make a choice in favor of the country.
It should also be taken into account that in 2022, the Polish subsidiary PZL Mielec was supposed to begin its participation in the program for the production of components for the F-16 Block 70/72. Moreover, it is this unit that Lockheed Martin has high hopes for increasing the production of UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, which the company plans to fly until 2070.
That is, the conditions that Ukraine can provide for the company's activity should not just be similar to those offered by other countries, but much better. At the same time, it should be noted that the entry of Lockheed Martin into Ukraine gives the country a huge advantage from the point of view that it is not just one of the largest defense companies, but the most powerful defense corporation in the world - the top 1. This is a company that in 2021 received 67 billion dollars in profit, of which 96% is from defense products. The closest competitor, the company Raytheon, has an indicator of $64 billion in revenue, but the share received from defense products is only 65%.
Obviously, the task will be not only for the Lockheed Martin company to open a center for maintenance and training of personnel for the operation of the F-16 in Ukraine, but also to expand its presence in the country in the future. One way or another, even after victory, Ukraine will need aircraft, long-range missile systems, such as PrSM, helicopters and key components for the creation of weapons in cooperation and under licenses. Because, in addition to the entry of Western companies into Ukraine, which will manufacture their products, the alternative is purchasing or relying only on one's own resources.
Read more: The Netherlands Makes Its Valuable Contribution Into Ukraine’s Air Defense With VERA-EG Radars and Training of Ukrainian F-16 Pilots
