Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co., Fort Value, Texas, has been awarded a $33,628,994 agency fastened worth contract modification (P00085) to beforehand awarded contract for F-16 retrofit. This contract modification offers for the Kapton alternative harness set up, harness one-time inspections, and plane mod line extension of 140 Taiwan F-16A/B plane underneath the fundamental contract. Work shall be carried out in Fort Value, Texas; and Taiwan, and is anticipated to be accomplished by Dec. 31, 2023. Overseas Army Gross sales funds for $33,628,994 shall be obligated on the time of the award. The full cumulative face worth of the contract is $2,855,817,667. The Air Power Life Cycle Administration Heart, Wright? Patterson Air Power Base, Ohio, is the contracting exercise.
Beneath the Phoenix Rising program, Taiwan is upgrading its fleet of 144 Lockheed Martin F-16 A/B Block 20 Combating Falcon fight plane to the F-16V configuration. As a part of the improve, the jets shall be put in with Northrop Grumman AN/APG-83 Scalable Agile Beam Radar (SABR) Lively Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar, new mission computer systems, and extra superior avionics and digital warfare suite. The upgraded jet may also have the potential to be armed with new precision-guided weapons. The full value of this system is estimated to be round $5.3 billion. The upgrades are being carried out by the Taiwanese state-owned aviation firm, Aerospace Industrial Growth Corp. (AIDC). The primary upgraded jet was delivered to ROC Air Power in 2018 and the venture is anticipated to be accomplished by 2023.
Commercial
The Republic of China Air Power operates a complete of 150 F-16A/B blocks 20 plane, that are basically equivalent to MLU plane. Taiwan is planning to amass 66 F-16C/D blocks 70 plane shortly, primarily to counter the perceived menace from mainland China. Though the Taiwanese F-16s are construct to MLU requirements, they’re changing into a bit out of date and definitely in contrast with the brand new {hardware} mainland China has put into place over the previous years. To counter this a $5.3 billion deal was put ahead to replace the prevailing F-16s. In 2016 it grew to become obvious {that a} bigger replace bundle was anticipated, overlaying most objects beforehand talked about (together with the PF100-PW-229 engines). Lockheed expanded this bundle additional finally changing into a brand new subblock. The bundle is named F-16V configuration, which can be represented as new-build block 70 airframes.
Kapton is a polyimide movie utilized in versatile printed circuits (versatile electronics) and house blankets, that are used on spacecraft, satellites, and numerous house devices. Kapton-insulated electrical wiring has been broadly utilized in civil and navy plane as a result of it’s lighter than different insulators and has good insulating and temperature traits. Nonetheless, Kapton insulation ages poorly: an FAA examine exhibits degradation in scorching, humid environments or the presence of seawater. It was discovered to have very poor resistance to mechanical put on, primarily abrasion inside cable harnesses as a result of plane motion. Many plane fashions have needed to bear intensive rewiring modifications—generally fully changing all of the Kapton-insulated wiring—due to quick circuits attributable to the defective insulation. Kapton-wire degradation and chafing as a result of vibration and warmth have been implicated in a number of crashes of each fixed-wing and rotary-wing plane, with lack of life.
