Programme Manager stresses F-35 s technical and global partnership innovations

Lockheed Martin's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Programme is extending technological frontiers and establishing new levels of international participation in a fighter aircraft program, the F-35 JSF's general manager told reporters today at the Paris Air Show.

"Our international F-35 team is well on its way to producing an aircraft system that ensures allied interoperability, closes the capability gap, enables technology transfer and allows air forces around the world to modernise their inventories with a single, highly capable and affordable design," said Tom Burbage, executive vice president and general manager of the Lockheed Martin F-35 JSF programme. "This programme represents all-new thinking, both in terms of its myriad technical breakthroughs, and its multi-company, multi-national character."

Burbage noted that the programme has begun tooling up for production, and remains on schedule for first flight in late 2005. He added that the process of enlisting international suppliers is ongoing and intense.

"The System Development and Demonstration (SDD) phase of the programme is less than two years old, and some of our international partners joined up less than a year ago, but at this moment we are actively engaged with governments and industries in every partner country to ensure that their industrial participation justifies their investment in F-35. We are lining up suppliers in each of those countries, and will continue to do so throughout the 10-year SDD period and into production."

F-35 SDD partner countries are the United Kingdom, Italy, the Netherlands, Turkey, Canada, Denmark, Norway and Australia.

The F-35 advances stealth technology by reducing the maintenance required for low-observable materials upkeep, and by bringing stealth out of the realm of specialised night missions and into round-the-clock service. Information fusion, increased unrefuelled range, precision all-weather targeting, and reduced reliance on support personnel and equipment are among the capabilities combined into a single strike fighter for the first time. The short takeoff/vertical landing (STOVL) version of the F-35 offers supersonic STOVL performance, as well as unrefuelled range that is greater than that of many non-STOVL fighters.

Lockheed Martin is developing the F-35 in conjunction with its principal industrial partners, Northrop Grumman and BAE SYSTEMS. Among the aircraft F-35 will replace are the AV-8B Harrier, A-10, F-16, F/A-18 and United Kingdom's Harrier GR.7 and Sea Harrier.

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