n the meantime, Bogdan and his team are focused on more current deadlines. Lockheed is expected to deliver a proposal for LRIP 9 and 10 in January or February of 2015, Bogdan said, which will kick off the next round of negotiations.
Those negotiations are part of what Bogdan called a “significant” ramp in production rates. The current plan calls for the three US services to buy 34 of 57 total planes in LRIP 9, 55 of 96 total planes in LRIP 10 and 68 of 121 total planes in LRIP 11.
http://archive.defensenews.com/article/20141031/DEFREG02/310310028/F-35-Heading-Toward-Block-Buy
The US Department of Defense (DoD) and Lockheed Martin finalised the eighth F-35 Lightning II Low-Rate Initial Production (LRIP 8) contract on 21 November, the DoD's programme office announced.
The deal is for 43 F-35 airframes valued at USD4.7 billion. The batch includes 29 aircraft for the United States and 14 for 5 other countries.
http://www.janes.com/article/46129/pentagon-finalises-f-35-lrip-8-contract
As of November, 115 F-35s, including test aircraft, were delivered from Lockheed Martin's production facility in Fort Worth, Texas.
ibid
So: to summarize
Prior to LRIP 8 (To Date) 115 aircraft delivered (plus initiation of foreign assembly)
With LRIP 8 (2015) 43 aircraft to be delivered
With LRIP 9 (2016) 57 aircraft to be delivered
With LRIP 10 (2017) 96 aircraft to be delivered
With LRIP 11 (2018) 121 aircraft to be delivered
Total F35s Flying (2019) 432 aircraft in the air
Next Canadian Election 2019
Retiremement Window for CF-188s 2020-2025
Gripen, Rafale, or Typhoon would give their eye-teeth for any one of those LOW RATE LRIP contracts and their total fleet strengths
444 Typhoon
247 Gripen
141 Rafale
for comparison
195 F22
500? F18 E-F
and for reference
1480 F18 A-D
4560+ F16
1198 F15
337 AV-8Bs
Only the Typhoon is in the same league as where the F35 will be when it hits Full Production rates on the way to a fleet of 2000 to 3000+ to replace all those Eagles, Falcons, Hornets and Harriers.
Super Hornet, Silent Eagle, even Fighting Falcon - may get some bridging orders to fill gaps - but the F35 is the designated Go To to replace up to 8000 existing aircraft. And nobody, anywhere, is going to match those numbers, not even if the EU miraculously healed itself and figured out how to agree on a single solution for anything.
Yep. We can go out and build ourselves a toy fleet of hangar queens for shade tree mechanics, like the French Air Force - or we can order a few dozen Chevys off a General Motors production line. And make money selling parts to the rest of the 2000 to 3000 (plus) vehicles that are likely to driven for the next 50 years (plus).
