Lockheed Martin’s Marietta plant could be one of two nationwide to build the LMXT aerial fuel tanker plane, pending a contract award from the U.S. Air Force.
Speaking from the hangar where the aircraft will one day be constructed, Gov. Brian Kemp said the selection could create up to 1,000 new Lockheed jobs atop more than 5,000 already employed in Marietta.
Though the tenor of Monday’s announcement was victorious, it’s all contingent on the firm winning the Air Force contract for a strategic tanker to refuel planes while in the air. That announcement isn’t likely to come until around 2024, Lockheed spokesperson Rob Fuller told the MDJ.
Lockheed unveiled the LMXT in September as a partnership with Airbus, which already builds the Airbus A330 Multi Role Tanker Transport (the LMXT will build on the design of Airbus’ existing tanker).
The planes will first be constructed as Airbus planes at the company’s Mobile, Alabama factory, per a Lockheed news release. They will then be sent to Marietta for “phase 2” of the manufacturing process, where they’ll be converted to the Lockheed LMXT model.
“We’re going to create more jobs in Georgia, stronger partnerships for suppliers across the state, with educational institutions too, and we’ll build new aircraft that’s going to support all our men and women in service all over the world,” said Lockheed CEO Jim Taiclet.
Kemp, meanwhile, touted the announcement as proof positive of Georgia’s “pro-growth, pro-military environment.”
The news comes less than a year after the governor signed Senate Bill 6, a wide-ranging tax incentive law which includes specific provisions for Lockheed. The bill doles out tax credits to Lockheed should it win a major military contract. While the LMXT announcement doesn’t directly relate to that legislation, Kemp said he hopes it’s the first of many to come.
“When we were walking in, one of the Lockheed representatives was saying that Senate Bill 6 wasn’t really even focused on a project like this,” Kemp added. “It’s just one of the other good things that has benefited from it.”
In addition to the Lockheed and Airbus executives, Kemp was joined by U.S. Barry Loudermilk, R-Cassville, who said he wants to see the military beef up its aerial fuel tanker production given the present geopolitical scene.
“Over the past decade or so, we shifted a lot in the military away from these other threats from other larger countries or nation-states into a counterterrorism force,” Loudermilk said. “While we’ve stayed on track with our frontline fighters — air superiority — we have fallen way behind in some areas, especially with the refueling platforms.
“And this becomes very critical, especially when you’re looking at potential conflict in Eastern Europe. We need to be able to deploy not only from our NATO ally partners, but we need to be able to get resources from the continental United States across the pond into that area of conflict quickly. The only way you can do that is with in-flight refueling.”
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