Interview: Lockheed Martin company, interested in intensifying the cooperation with Romania

Tom Stanton, director for International Development in the American company, Lockheed Martin, and James Robinson, responsible for Business International Program of F-16 aircrafts, presented in an interview for Mediafax and Defence and Security Monitor, the projects in the relation with Romania, at the Black Sea Defence and Aerospace 2018 exposition.

-THE INTERVIEW WAS BROADCASTED ON 19^TH OF MAY, 2018-

Mihai Draghici, reporter: Welcome and thank you for accepting the interview. Can you tell us about the products Lockheed Martin is featuring at the Black Sea Defense and Aerospace 2018?

Tom Stanton: first of all, thank you very much for this opportunity to talk with you. I would break it down really into three areas, first one being the antiballistic defence, where we are offering the Patriot PAC-3 missiles, which is part of the larger Patriot system for air missile defence. PAC-3 is a combat proven to hit to kill missiles, at defeats, both tactical ballistic missiles and also air threats, which is what we categorize as both cruise missiles and aircrafts. The other area is what we call HIMARS, which is a High Mobility Artillery Rocket System- and that is also one that is offered on contract right now for Romania and it has a minimal range, surface on surface with 15 km all the way to 300 kilometers, using two types of ammunition. So, we are really excited about that opportunity. The last one I will talk about is what we call a ground vehicle. It is our 4x4 Lockheed Martin vehicle, with high mobility, it has crew protection, it has online connection technology and this is what we call our 4x4 last generation technology. We have been in development of this product for 10 years and we are just really excited about having the opportunity to partner with Romania industry as part of the industrial part participation, which is really critical and we understand that and we want to assure that Lockheed Martin is a part of that, and assure that in terms of defence and national requirements, we participate in this effort.

I think really that, more importantly, the opportunity for Romanians is to increase the job offers here, and we can do that with having a 4x4 vehicle that is produced and also manufactured in Romania. 

Mihai Draghici, reporter: Tell us more about the F-16 and other aircrafts produced by the company.

Tom Stanton: thank you very much again for the opportunity.

James Robinson: we would like to congratulate Romanian Air Force for being the F-16 aircrafts new US’s customer in the world, so that is great news. The F-16 is a wonderful aircraft, although produced a long time ago, in the late 1970, it is continually evolved over time and today the F-16 is completely active in the modern conflict environment. So, the F-16 used by the Romanian Aircrafts represent new modern equipment as well as great capabilities to go with that F-16. Lockheed Martin also have produced over 4588 F-16 aircrafts sold all around the world, we started 3000 operational F-15 planes in 25 countries and we are very excited about Romania being the newest client for F-16 aircrafts.

Other Lockheed Martin products brought here for the exposition is a C-130 Hercules aircraft, the Romanian Air Force uses an aircraft like that; are the world’s most proven tactical planes so we are very proud of that partnership that we have here in Romania. Another one would the an UH-60 Black Hawk which we understand there is a discussion with the Romanian Military about that and we think the UH-60 is almost the F-16 version of the helicopters fleet. Worldwide mission participations, thousands of aircrafts were produced and still a very relevant operative aircraft today.

Mihai Draghici, reporter: what does Martin Lockheed hopes to accomplish at this year’s BDSA edition?

James Robinson: My colleague Tom (Stanton) already answered that. From my point of view is that we hope to strengthen our relation with the Romanian Military, meet new friends and let the Romanian Air Force know, at least from the Lockheed Martin’s side, that Lockheed Martin is here to support and help to either upgrade their crafts, to help develop aircrafts, or whatever it takes to keep the Romanian Air Force viable and keep the aircrafts fleet.

 Mihai Draghici, reporter: thank you for the interview.