C-130 News: Lockheed notches another C-130 order with $61.3M Coast Guard contract

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The U.S. Coast Guard awarded Bethesda-based Lockheed Martin Corp. a $61.3 million contract for an extended-range, search-and-recovery variant of the company’s signature C-130 military transport craft.

The contract, awarded Monday, is icing on the cake for Lockheed, which secured a multiyear, $5.3 billion contract in December to deliver 78 C-130Js to a combination of U.S. Air Force and U.S. Marine Corps customers. The contract also offered the Coast Guard an option to purchase five HC-130Js between 2016 and 2020. This recent contract represents the second of those five options exercised by the Coast Guard.

Under the multiyear contract negotiated at the end of last year, the U.S. Air Force would be getting 30 special operations tanker MC-130Js, 13 search-and-rescue HC-130Js, and 29 C-130J-30s — a stretch variant that adds 15 feet to the fuselage of the traditional C-130J airframe. The Marines would be getting six KC-130Js, an extended-range aerial refueling tanker.

"Lockheed Martin's C-130J is a plane everyone wants because it’s so effective in many roles and relatively economical to operate,” Rebecca Grant, president of the D.C.-based public policy think tank IRIS Independent Research, wrote to me in an email in November 2015. "Looking ahead, Air Force special operations wants a laser weapon on the AC-130 gunship. Coast Guard uses it for patrol and sensors, Marines made it into a refueled — the list goes on."

"The C-130J is as much a feather in the cap for Lockheed Martin as F-35,” Grant added.

This contract follows a series of awards that Lockheed has received since November 2015. That month, Lockheed won a $968.7 million contract to deliver 17 C-130Js, $1 billion in December for 32 more orders and another $1.5 billion for 28 more in March 2016. These were all contracts issued against the multiyear.

Source: http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/blog/fedbiz_daily/2016/04/lockheed-notches-another-c-130-order-with-61-3m.html

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Acquisition Update: Coast Guard Orders C-130J Long Range Surveillance Aircraft

Using funds transferred from the Coast Guard, the Air Force awarded a $61.3 million contract to Lockheed Martin Corp. on April 18, 2016, for production of one C-130J long range surveillance aircraft, the 13th of the Coast Guard’s planned acquisition of 22 C-130Js. The plane is contracted for delivery in March 2019. All work will be completed at the Lockheed Martin Aeronautics facility in Marietta, Georgia.

The Air Force is the U.S. government’s executive agent for all C-130 procurements. This award is part of a multiyear contract constructed in alignment with the government’s Better Buying Power initiative. The contract includes options for the Coast Guard to acquire up to three additional C-130Js.

Additionally, the Coast Guard has initiated efforts to implement a new standardized mission system, which includes the next-generation Navy Minotaur mission control processor to incorporate the radar, sensors and other equipment, across the HC-130J fleet.
 
The Coast Guard has accepted delivery of seven Super Hercules aircraft. Five are operational HC-130Js. One delivered aircraft has been designated as a Minotaur prototype, and another has entered the Minotaur program.

Two more aircraft in the LRS program are being configured to meet legacy missionization requirements and will be delivered to the Coast Guard later this year.

Aircraft 10-12 are also under contract, with delivery of base configuration aircraft expected in 2017, 2018 and 2019. Those aircraft, plus this latest C-130J order, will be missionized upon delivery with the Minotaur mission system by L-3 Communications in Waco, Texas.

The Super Hercules carries out many Coast Guard missions, including search and rescue, drug and migrant interdiction, cargo and personnel transport, and maritime stewardship. The aircraft is capable of serving as an on-scene command and control platform or as a surveillance platform with the means to detect, classify and identify objects and share that information with operational forces.

Source: http://www.uscg.mil/Acquisition/newsroom/updates/c130j042216.asp (USCG Press Release)