10-22-2025, 04:57 PM
Two tidbits of interesting information came out from the latest Lockheed Martin earnings call.
The first was from MFC (Missiles and Fire Control). This would be the AIM-260 JATM. During the call James Taiclet, Chairman, President and CEO, talked about a program within the MFC umbrella that had to get past certain test points, and has successfully passed them, and they have much more confidence in that program. This points to them working out kinks in the program and the program starting to smooth out.
The second, and potentially more interesting tidbit comes from a classified Aero program. Lockheed has put everyone they can onto this program, including the chief engineer for the company. The program was bid as a fixed price contract in 2018, and Lockheed has taken a pretty big hit on it, but they think it's going to be a complete game changer and revolutionize aero technology. They say there's no 100% guarantee, but they see big demand for it and a very robust future for the program. They also let out that the internal designation is P958.
The first was from MFC (Missiles and Fire Control). This would be the AIM-260 JATM. During the call James Taiclet, Chairman, President and CEO, talked about a program within the MFC umbrella that had to get past certain test points, and has successfully passed them, and they have much more confidence in that program. This points to them working out kinks in the program and the program starting to smooth out.
The second, and potentially more interesting tidbit comes from a classified Aero program. Lockheed has put everyone they can onto this program, including the chief engineer for the company. The program was bid as a fixed price contract in 2018, and Lockheed has taken a pretty big hit on it, but they think it's going to be a complete game changer and revolutionize aero technology. They say there's no 100% guarantee, but they see big demand for it and a very robust future for the program. They also let out that the internal designation is P958.
Quote:And then when it came to MFC, that program needed to get past certain test points, if you will. It's gotten past them. We have a lot more confidence in that, and we took the charges we did because that risk had been carried all those years. And then finally, on the Aero Classified, we have basically ground that program in talent and attention. We've got our Chief Engineer for the entire company now, basically the project engineer on the [ P958 ] program, along with a lot of other talent, too. So again, we rebaselined every single original assumption in that bid from 2018.https://seekingalpha.com/article/4831539...transcript
And we think we've covered most of the bases that we can understand. But there's still technical risk in this. And what will come out the other side is something really amazing that will have lots more demand, we think, beyond the fixed price production lots that we are taking the charges for. So I do see a much more robust future for that program now that we've taken those charges and again, put that all behind us, but it's not 100% risk-free, let's say. But I think in the end, all-in-all, and I've been on top of all these programs myself, too, at a detailed level, this will be very good for the company and very good for the country over the next number of years.
