I mean the refitted monster with the huge guns hanging out the side.
Posted on 11/13/2003 8:56:49 PM PST by BenLurkin
The first flight of the F-35 joint strike fighter moved one step closer this week with the start of manufacturing for some of the aircrafts' major airframe components. And the center fuselages of the fighter will be assembled at Northrop Grumman Corp.'s facility at Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, eventually bringing 200 jobs to the Valley. The first center fuselage is expected to arrive sometime next spring, Northrop Grumman spokesman Jim Hart said.
Suppliers for prime contractor Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co. and principal partner Northrop Grumman began machining parts Monday at their suppliers' facilities in Arlington, Texas, and Gardena, respectively.
Final assembly of the aircraft will take place at Lockheed's plant in Fort Worth, Texas.
Northrop Grumman already has job postings for about 150 positions related to the F-35 assembly in Palmdale, Hart said, and the company expects to begin filling those sometime after the first of the year. Right now, only a handful of positions have been filled to prepare the manufacturing area.
"We haven't really staffed up there yet," he said.
Eventually, the F-35 program will employ approximately 200 people at the Palmdale site.
The F-35 program is in what is known as the system development and demonstration phase. This phase, covered under a $19 billion contract awarded in October 2001, will produce 22 aircraft in all three variants of the fighter: a conventional take-off and landing version for the Air Force, a carrier-capable version for the Navy and a short take-off, vertical landing version for the Marine Corps and Britain's Royal Navy. Fourteen of the aircraft in this phase will be used for flight test, while the rest will see duty in ground testing, said Kathy Crawford, spokeswoman for the Pentagon's JSF program office.
The next crucial milestone for the program will be the critical design review next spring, which will set the final design of the aircraft.
The parts which have begun production already are portions of the aircraft that will not be changed, Crawford said.
The first flight, using the Air Force variant, is expected in late 2005.
Flight testing will occur at Edwards Air Force Base and Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md.
The fighters are anticipated to enter service in 2008.
The F-35 joint strike fighter is intended to be a stealthy, relatively low-cost, high-performance aircraft for use by the U.S. Navy, Air Force and Marines, as well as for Britain's Royal Navy and Royal Air Force and other U.S. allies.
The fighter will replace a variety of aircraft, including the Harrier, A-10, F-14, F-16 and F/A-18.
Expected to be the largest military aircraft contract ever, the F-35 was selected in October 2001, following a competition between aircraft proposed by teams led by Lockheed Martin and The Boeing Co.
In addition to the United Kingdom, the list of international partners now includes Italy, the Netherlands, Turkey, Canada, Denmark, Norway and Australia.
Israel has joined the program as a security cooperation participant, a level of involvement that is somewhat less than the other international partners, but more than the traditional foreign customers, Crawford said.
Singapore intends to join the program in the same capacity in the next few months, she said.
While long-term numbers are not yet known, as many as 3,000 aircraft may be produced.
I don't think this is accurate. The F-15 should be added to the list. The Super Hornet is still alive, maybe the old F-18 is dead. The A-10 was obsoleted by the AC-130 gunship wasn't it?
The ac-130 was test flown in 1967, the a-10 in 1975.
I mean the refitted monster with the huge guns hanging out the side.
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