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| Lockheed Martin F-35A Lightning Fighter |
By: Valerie Insinna
WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump may have had his meetings with the Lockheed Martin chief executive officer, but he’s not ready to play nice, tweeting on Thursday evening that he could look to Boeing’s Super Hornet as an alternative to the F-35.
“Based on the tremendous cost and cost overruns of the Lockheed Martin F-35, I have asked Boeing to price-out a comparable F-18 Super Hornet!” he tweeted at 5:26 p.m. EST.
Lockheed Martin stock, which had closed at $252.80 a share, tumbled down to $247.75 at about 7 p.m. EST, a 2 percent decline. At the same time, Boeing stock shot up by about 1.49 percent, increasing from $157.46 to $158.95 a share.
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| Boeing F/A-18E Super Hornet Fighter |
What this means for Lockheed Martin and its top competitor Boeing in the long term is not exactly clear. Although the F-35 has been plagued with its share of cost overruns and technical issues, the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet is a fourth-generation plane that lacks many of the capabilities that define a fifth-generation plane, such as stealth and sensor fusion. Redesigning a Super Hornet that meets the same requirements as the F-35 would require years of development and engineering time and probably billions of dollars.
Read the full story at DefenseNews