Lockheed aims to churn out dozens of F-16 pilots per year at new training center

Lockheed Martin just graduated the first students from its F-16 training center in Romania, but the company is already looking to expand it and double its production of pilots as the U.S. and its allies struggle to meet demand for training.

“We could probably do upwards of 30 to 40” pilots per year with expansions, Frank St. John, Lockheed’s chief operating officer, told Defense One. 

The first group of eight Romanian pilots graduated from the center last month, and a second class of pilots is heading in.

St. John said the center is ready to train Ukrainian pilots if it is asked to.

“As Ukraine and the U.S. government determine what the best approach is for training Ukrainian pilots, if they determine that doing that in the Romanian center is the right approach, then we'll follow their lead and do that,” he said.

Ukraine, which recently received its first F-16 jets, has been frustrated by the slow production of pilots to fly them. Some are being trained by the U.S. military, while others are being trained in Denmark, but Denmark plans to close its facility after this year, and the U.S. pipeline must also handle commitments to train other countries’ pilots as well.

To keep Ukraine’s F-16s flying, Kyiv and its allies will need to build out an extensive maintenance and logistics network. How exactly the U.S. will help with maintenance and repair is still an “active conversation” between the two governments, but when they reach a final agreement, Lockheed is ready to help, St. John said, “but we haven't been put on contract for anything at this point.”

Ukraine’s F-16s could be serviced at Lockheed’s maintenance hub in Poland, which was built so the hundreds of F-16s operating in Europe don’t have to come back to the U.S. to get major maintenance work and upgrades, St. John said.

“Our intention for that facility is that it'll be a regional facility, and so Ukraine is certainly in the region. So again, all of this comes under the guidance and auspices of the U.S. government and so it's certainly capable of doing that, but we'll follow the government's lead on how they want us to work Ukraine support,” St. John said. 

While Lockheed expands its infrastructure in Europe, some U.S. defense companies have been in talks with Ukraine about joint production. Northrop Grumman recently announced it will make ammunition inside Ukraine, but it won’t have any people on the ground. St. John said the company is open to co-production deals in Ukraine, but they don’t have any plans in the works. 

“As Ukraine begins to expand its build out of its own industrial base for defense, and as their requirements evolve, long term, we would look to apply a similar model there, as we've applied in places like Poland,” St. John said. 

The company is planning to stand up more regional maintenance hubs beyond the one in Poland, potentially in Western European countries, as well as Australia and elsewhere in East Asia, he said. “It's a model that we've had some success with early on, and now we're looking to replicate it.”

Lockheed is also building out its infrastructure stateside to increase the production of two key weapons for the Pentagon: the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles (JASSM) and Long-Range Anti-Ship Missiles (LRASM). 

Amid reports that U.S. officials are considering supplying Ukraine with JASSM, which would give Kyiv’s F-16s the ability to launch cruise missiles at targets more than 200 miles away, the company received a $130 million contract earlier this month to increase JASSM and LRASM production. 

The new contract would give Lockheed the tooling and equipment necessary to fully outfit its facilities to support an increased build rate of 1,100 JASSMs and LRASMs combined, St. John said. 

“We think that with the U.S. government requirement, and then multiple international customers, that we're going to see that 1,100 build rate continue for several years, at least through the end of the decade,” St. John said.