JUSTIN WASTNAGE / LONDON
BAE Systems has started negotiations with the US Department of Defense over a further amendment to its technical data export licence for its workshare of the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.
The UK Ministry of Defence gave its approval last week to Amendment Eight of the company's technical assistance agreement (TAA) with the JSF programme office, clearing the final hurdle to the deal, which was signed on 17 November. BAE Systems was forced to remove several key areas from the latest amendment, which lists documents the company's engineers are cleared to view, to avoid delaying its workshare commitments. These areas will now be grouped together into a ninth amendment.
Before Amendment Eight, Lockheed Martin engineers had been forced to withhold documentation in areas not covered by the rolling arms export authorisations.
BAE Systems has now started negotiations on gaining access to these exempted topics, which include electro-optics for the targeting systems and communications security modules. Amendment Nine is scheduled for completion in April next year and is being prepared jointly by BAE and Lockheed Martin this month.
BAE Systems' JSF vice-president and deputy programme manager Tom Fillingham says there was a delay in receiving US DoD approval for Amendment Eight due to a lack of detail in its application. Fillingham says in turn the detail required was contained within the documents to which the company was denied access. BAE Systems decided to remove the sensitive items from Amendment Eight to prevent delaying development work on other areas, says Fillingham.
The company has now worked with Lockheed Martin to compile a list of documents it will require under Amendment Nine.
Source: Flight International
