19 June 2001
Main contenders, Boeing and Lockheed and the the US DoD's programme office took the opportunity to brief on their achievements so far and the way forward.
Major General Mike Hough, the DoD programme manager, praised both aircraft saying the X-32 (Boeing's offering) showed "spectacular handling", while the Lockheed Martin X35 "knocked them dead." According to Navy test pilots both carrier variants could be "taken out to the ship right now." He did not say which of the two competitors would win when the down select came in October this year.
Hough emphasised that the competition remained a 'winner take all' selection, but admitted that since the beginning of the programme several years ago the number of fighter aircraft builders had reduced to two and, given the size of the programme, political concerns that the loss of the contract might drive the looser to the wall might dictate a change.
He outlined the international nature of the programme, in which the United Kingdom is a 'level one' partner. Negotiations were in hand to bring Italy, The Netherlands and Turkey in board as 'level two' partners and Canada, Denmark and Norway as 'level three' partners.
He considered that the several reviews being carried out in the Pentagon as part of the Bush Administration's 'root and branch' review of US military programmes were seeing the worth of the JSF and was confident that the programme would survive.
Both manufacturers said they were very satisfied with the way the programme had validated their particular aircraft. Boeing's Mike Heinz said that the Boeing JSF team had provided the DoD Programme Office with sealed predictions of the X32 capabilities before the test flights began and had the results had remained within 1-2% of the predictions.
The Lockheed Martin Joint Strike Fighter team had proven its JSF concept by successfully flight-testing a demonstrator that was essentially identical to the aircraft the company planned for full-scale production, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company Executive Vice President and Joint Strike Fighter Programme Manager Tom Burbage told reporters.
"We chose this path to ensure that our entry into the engineering and manufacturing development phase of the programme is one of low technical risk," said Burbage. "Trying to predict an airplane's behavior through computer modelling and simulation, as sophisticated as it has become, still cannot provide all the data you need to drive down technical risk. If your ultimate goal is a low-risk JSF, you must actually fly a demonstrator that closely matches the airplane you intend to produce."
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