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F-35 Planned for Full Warfighting Capability by 2014

By Richard R. Burgess, Managing Editor

The Program Executive Office for the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter expects to have 200 F-35s in service, test and production by 2014, the year the aircraft will reach full warfighting capability.

Capt. Wade Knudson, acting deputy program manager for the aircraft program, said all 12 flight test aircraft and seven ground test articles of the System Development and Demonstration phase will be built by the end of the year. Three flight test aircraft are in a flying status. He said the test program expects to execute 5,000 flight hours during the next five years.

"We have retired a tremendous amount of risk in the program up to this point," Knudson said during a May 5 briefing at the Sea-Air-Space Exposition at the Gaylord Resort and Convention Center, National Harbor, Md.

Thirty-one additional F-35s are authorized under the first three low-rate initial production contracts. The Marine Corps' F-35B short-takeoff/vertical-landing version is scheduled to reach initial operational capability in 2012, followed by the Air Force's F-35A in 2014 and the Navy's carrier-based F-35C in 2015.

Basic capability will be introduced in 2010, followed by initial warfare capability in 2012. By 2014, the program office expects to have 20 aircraft in operational test and a production rate of 130 aircraft per year.

The F-35 production line at Lockheed Martin's Fort Worth, Texas, facility is the first moving assembly line for a fighter aircraft. The line will complete one F-35 daily during full-rate production.

Knudson said the F-35 program will reach $300 billion through the planned production run and, counting operation and support, could reach $1 trillion over the life of the program.