Had to rip-n-paste, sorry.
Within striking distance
Assembly begins on section of first test plane in $244 billion Joint Strike Fighter project
By Barry Shlachter
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
FORT WORTH - Lockheed Martin on Monday marked a new stage in the development of its lucrative F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, the start of forward fuselage assembly for the initial test plane.
Final assembly of the test aircraft is scheduled to begin in May, with flight tests to follow in the summer of 2006.
In January, the Pentagon increased the JSF development cost estimate by $5 billion to $40.5 billion and added a year to what some consider an overly optimistic development timetable.
This spring, the Defense Department estimated the JSF's total cost through at least 2037 at $244 billion, which includes the purchase of 2,457 planes.
Most speakers in the 1942 bomber plant building referred to the emotional moment in 2001 when Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman's joint proposal was selected after a grueling four-year competition.
Plans call for 22 test aircraft to be built, 14 of which would fly. Others would be used to test radar and other systems. The first deployable aircraft is scheduled for delivery in December 2009.
Far from the glare of TV lights, at scores of identical, beige-walled cubicles in another section of the sprawling complex, a group of engineers known as SWAT is working at computers trying to shave ounces, if not pounds, from an F-35 version for the Marines and Britain's Royal Air Force and Navy.
SWAT is an acronym piled onto another acronym: STOVL (short-takeoff/vertical landing) weight attack team.
The goal is to pare the aircraft by more than 2,000 pounds.
A review panel appointed by Michael Wynne, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, recently warned that the STOVL F-35's weight "may be greater than previously recognized."
But Arthur E. Sheridan, SWAT's director, expressed confidence that enough needed trimmings would take place by mid-August.
There are no magic fixes, no "helium-filled fasteners," to lighten the load, Sheridan said.
His team reached out beyond its 500 members to outside suppliers, co-contractors Northrop Grumman and Britain's BAE Systems, and just about everybody at Lockheed.
The plant held a so-called stand-down day so that all hands -- from vice presidents to secretaries -- could make suggestions, Sheridan said.
Three thousand "legitimate" ideas emerged from the session of which the team mulled over a couple of hundred, he said. And there are incentives: $100 checks for bona fide suggestions and larger, undisclosed, sums for those actually implemented -- based on per-pound savings.
Among other measures, the team so far has saved more than 222 pounds by reducing four electric power panels to three.
Lighter lithium-ion batteries replaced nickel-cadmium ones: a 30-pound cut.
The STOVL version has an auxiliary inlet to push more air toward the engine. By rounding the corners of its lip, thrust was increased.
Titanium replaced steel where it paid off, aluminum for titanium. Lighter and fewer bolts and other fasteners were employed, or spaced farther apart if practical.
Final assembly of all versions of the JSF will take place in Fort Worth, with Northrop providing the midfuselage and radar-filled nose, BAE building the aft fuselage and tails, and Lockheed Martin the forward fuselage and wings.
About 4,000 Lockheed employees in Fort Worth are working on the JSF, along with employees for Lockheed's partners.
