FT. WORTH, Texas - A tiger team consisting of Lockheed Martin executives and stakeholders from each Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) partner nation will conduct its first meeting next month to explore the particulars of a collective international buy, according to Dan Crowley, the company's F-35 vice president.

Through that effort, called Lightning Strike, Lockheed Martin hopes to secure commitments for 100 aircraft through 2011 and an additional 1,300 (including 800 for the U.S. and another 500 from partner nations) thereafter.

The goal is to solidify quantities needed by partner nations to stabilize production early in the program. Crowley says participating nations needn't sign formal orders, but simply collaborate on how many airframes of which type - conventional takeoff and landing; short takeoff and landing or carrier variant - and agree to stabilize the topline projections.

Program officials hope this strategy will allow them to stabilize the per-unit cost of the stealthy strike aircraft. Addressing cost is a key issue as the Pentagon continues to conduct a midcourse review of the $24 billion development contract. Of that $24 billion about $9 billion remains, and the development program is at its halfway mark.

The project's program management reserves - usually set between 5 percent and 10 percent - have fallen below standard limits in the Defense Department, so officials are considering an array of options to trim cost from the program, including one that would cut two test aircraft. That proposal would save hundreds of millions of dollars, Crowley says.

Estimates of the amount of money needed to refresh the program management reserve account vary. Some government sources suggest the account is short as much as $600 million.

Crowley says those aircraft would be dedicated to mission systems tests, which he argues can be handled through conducting testing with the remaining test jets in a more integrated fashion - addressing multiple testing points per sortie. And company officials say some of the work can be provided by a series of labs, both on the ground and in Lockheed Martin's Cooperative Avionics Testbed, a Boeing 373 modified to accommodate all of the F-35's avionics in an integrated flight-test platform.