Norway's insistence on gaining significant workshare in programme pays off Kongsberg signs fresh partnering deals
Norway's tough stance on negotiating industrial participation in the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) programme has paid off, with the Oslo government agreeing to sign up for the next phase after Kongsberg Defence and Aerospace sealed agreements with Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman to produce composite parts for the F-35.
Norway has agreed to sign the memorandum of understanding (MoU) for the production, sustainment and follow-on development phase after successful efforts to substantiate the content of the industrial participation plan offered by Lockheed and its partners, says the nation's defence ministry. Signing was held back to achieve more tangible agreements for Norwegian industry, it adds.
"We now believe that the industrial co-operation plans have become significantly more concrete," says defence minister Anne-Grete Strøm-Erichsen.
Signing the MoU is not a commitment to purchase the JSF, Norway says, and it will maintain competition between the F-35, Eurofighter Typhoon and Saab Gripen until making a decision in 2008. To offset Norway's investment in JSF, development co-operation agreements are also being negotiated with Eurofighter and Gripen International.
Kongsberg has signed long-term framework agreements to produce leading edges, fuselage components and other composite parts for the F-35, conditional on Norway buying the F-35, and on the Oslo government giving the company a guarantee to cover the risk of building a new composites plant.
As the JSF production work will be awarded competitively, Norway needed to be sure its industry would be competitive before signing the MoU. "Otherwise, down the line, we could prove to not be competitive and the work would disappear," says Harald Annestad, vice-president of Kongsberg's missiles and space group.
Annestad says negotiations with Lockheed and Northrop have documented that Kongsberg can be competitive, and this gave the government confidence to sign the MoU. Sole-source production for Lockheed is valued at NKr1.3 billion ($200 million) over eight years, and second-source production for Northrop a further NKr650 million, says Kongsberg.
Construction of the new composites factory is to begin later this year. Kongsberg is working to define composites production packages with Eurofighter and Gripen International, but the quantities will not be as large as with JSF, Annestad says.
Source: Flight International
