F-35 Production, Testing And International Participation Ramp
Up
Over the next calendar year, the F-35 Lighting II program will
complete all remaining System Development and Demonstration
aircraft, deliver the first production-model F-35s to the armed
services and initiate full-scale flight test operations at Edwards
Air Force Base, CA and Naval Air Station Patuxent River, MD.
At least, that's what Lockheed Martin asserts.
"2009 is shaping up to be a year of firsts for the F-35 program,
with the first flight of our F-35C carrier variant, the first
vertical landing of our F-35B short takeoff/vertical landing
variant, the first stand-ups of our test sites as Edwards and Pax
River, the first training aircraft delivered to the US Air Force
and the first F-35 orders from our international partners," said
Dan Crowley, Lockheed Martin executive vice president and F-35
program general manager, speaking last week at the Air Force
Association's 2009 Air Warfare Symposium in Orlando, FL. "Already,
we have delivered eight of 19 SDD jets, and we are moving aircraft
off the assembly line at a rate of about one per month, a pace that
continues to accelerate."
Additionally, the program will continue to validate the F-35's
highly evolved mission systems software and hardware by adding to
the more than 1,100 hours of flight testing and 115,000 hours of
laboratory testing already completed. The initiation of flight
testing for the first mission-systems-equipped F-35 will reinforce
technical risk reduction efforts for the most powerful and
comprehensive avionics system ever packaged into a fighter.
"As we mature the F-35, we continue to see evidence of
ever-strengthening customer support -- in the US Air Force's
request for stepped-up production, in the US Navy's call for
reinstatement of three early-production F-35Cs, and in Norway's and
the Netherlands' endorsement of the F-35 as their future fighter,"
Crowley said. "We will see more of the same in 2009, as we prove
out the Lightning II's capabilities, and as our international
partners begin ordering their first airplanes."
Three F-35 variants derived from a common design, developed
together and using the same sustainment infrastructure worldwide,
will replace at least 13 types of aircraft for 11 nations
initially, making the Lightning II the most cost-effective fighter
program in history.