Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman to do local work on F-35, Advanced Hawkeye

Two big defense firms landed contracts on March 24 to perform services on military-grade aircraft, and a large part of work will take place in Central Florida.

Falls Church, Va.-based Northrop Grumman Corp. (NYSE: NOC) won a $32.7 million contract to perform software support activity for the E-2D Advanced Hawkeye aircraft. More than half of the work will take place at Northrop Grumman’s aerospace systems location in Melbourne. Work also will take place in nine other locations throughout the U.S. The contract has a March 2018 completion date.

Bethesda, Md.-based Lockheed Martin Corp. (NYSE: LMT) won a $10.4 million contract to perform a risk reduction and integration study for the F-35 stealth aircraft. Part of the work is taking place in Orlando, where Lockheed Martin has nearly 7,000 employees, but most of the work will take place at Lockheed Martin’s Fort Worth, Texas location. The contract has a March 2020 completion date.

Meanwhile, see the slideshow for a look inside a Lockheed flight simulator facility.

Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman often scoop up big contracts with local work, leading to more job creation and business for parts and service providers in the area.

Military contracts contribute to the local economy in the form of jobs and subcontractor opportunities, and Central Florida is a major player when it comes to defense contracts. The region snags about $4 billion in government contracts each year because the nation’s Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines simulation operations are based in Central Florida Research Park. That work helps make Orlando the modeling, simulation and training capital of the world, according to the Orlando Economic Development Commission.