The F-35 is ready for battle - said an optimistic Lorraine Martin, vice president in charge of the Lockheed Martin program - the Marine Corps should declare the F-35B's initial operational capacity (IOC) in fifteen days (version short take-off and vertical landing).
The F-35B will be declared operational shortly, but its capabilities will still be reduced. As expected, the fighter cannot shoot with the cannon, while only a few weapons can be carried in the internal hold in "clean configuration" and externally.
The F-35 will only carry AIM-120 missiles, GBU-12 and 32 bombs. The US Air Force will have to wait until 2016 to be able to declare Initial Operational Capability.
The second challenge for Lockheed Martin is industrial: to reduce costs and increase the pace of production. Special interventions are currently underway on the Fort Worth site to expand the plant's production capacity. A first unit was assembled in Italy and Japan.
Once fully up and running, 17 F-35 will be released from the flight lines a month. Loockheed Martin also announced a reduction in the number of working hours required for the production of each fighter. While in the 2011 153 thousand hours of work were needed to make a single F-35, in 2015 the hours went down to 50.000. Within the 2020, Lockheed Martin hopes not to breach the 35 thousand hour ceiling.
By the 2019, the cost for each individual version of the aircraft should be reduced by 10 million dollars.
Lockheed, in the 2020, hopes to bring the F-35A to the 80 million dollar market. In order to optimize the industrial process, 82 points of the main project on which to invest have been identified and which should lead to savings starting from the LRIP 9 lot.
Despite the criticism, the F-35 program is underway. 140 aircraft currently fly the skies with 153.000 flight hours accumulated.
Every ten days, 35 flight hours are accumulated in the F-1000 program.
Franco Iacch
(photo: Lockheed Martin)
