Northrop Grumman Tests F-35 Weapons Loading

Northrop Grumman and its partners on Lockheed Martin's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter team recently continued laying critical groundwork for the aircraft's operational effectiveness by conducting a weapons-loading demonstration with military ordnance crews from the United Kingdom. Involving operational users early in the design of key aircraft components is unprecedented in military aircraft programs.

Ordnance crews from the Royal Air Force and Navy loaded mockups of several weapons into a full-scale mock-up of the F-35's internal weapons bay and provided evaluations of the process to the F-35 design team.  The demonstration - similar to a weapons-loading exercise with US ordnance crews last December - was conducted March 23-25 in El Segundo at the headquarters of Northrop Grumman's Integrated Systems sector.

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is a stealthy, supersonic aircraft designed to replace a wide range of aging fighter and strike aircraft for the Royal Air Force and Navy, US Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps and allied defense forces worldwide.

 "Allowing our UK users to provide feedback early in the program will enable us to evaluate and refine the weapons bay design to make sure it meets their needs," said Steve Briggs, Northrop Grumman vice president and F-35 program manager.  "Traditionally, military aircraft programs have conducted demonstrations like this after the first aircraft was built, which limited opportunities for military personnel to provide meaningful input.Interacting with operational users is another example of the new standard the F-35 program has brought to the defense industry."

"The demonstration proved a great success, giving the UK load crew the opportunity to fully assess the baseline loading concept," said Mark Jones, UK Weapons Principal for the JSF Program Office. He said the weapons-bay model is a key risk-reduction tool for the program.  he said.  "The results from the demonstration will help us in providing the warfighter with the optimum loading solution."

The demonstrations will ensure the F-35 weapons bay accommodates a variety of internally carried ordnance and that ground crews can easily load it.  The weapons used included air-to-air missiles such as the AIM-120 and AIM-132 air-to-air missiles, and "smart," GPS-guided munitions such as 1000-lb., and 2000-lb., versions of the joint direct attack munitions.

Northrop Grumman Integrated Systems is designing and integrating the F-35 center fuselage section, including integration of the subsystems; development of a substantial portion of F-35 mission systems software; ground and flight test support; signature-and low-observables development support, and modeling and simulation activities support.

Northrop Grumman will assemble F-35 center fuselages at its advanced manufacturing facility in Palmdale (CA) and then ship them to Lockheed Martin Aeronautics in Fort Worth (TX) for final assembly.

FMI: www.northropgrumman.com