NGC Completes Center Fuselage for 1st US Navy F-35 Aircraft
Historic First Continues Company's Record of On-Time Performance
(Palmdale, Calif., August 19, 2008) -- Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC) today completed -- on budget and on schedule -- the center fuselage for the first U.S. Navy F-35C Lightning II aircraft, an aircraft carrier-capable variant designated CF-1.
The company celebrated the production milestone with a brief ceremony at the Palmdale facility where it assembles center fuselages for F-35 prime contractor Lockheed Martin. More than 200 Northrop Grumman employees shared the historic occasion with executives from the U.S. Department of Defense's F-35 Lightning II Joint Program Office, and F-35 prime contractor Lockheed Martin.
"Today's event represents not only the completion of a major aircraft assembly for the F-35 program, but also the delivery on a promise by Northrop Grumman," said Mark Tucker, vice president and F-35 program manager for Northrop Grumman's Integrated Systems sector. "We've shown that we can design and produce a common center fuselage that will meet the operational and logistic support requirements of all three variants of the F-35. And that we're ready to transition to the production phase of the program."
The CF-1 center fuselage will be the seventh of ten center fuselages that Northrop Grumman plans to deliver to Lockheed Martin this year, he added.
"Meeting this delivery commitment on time helps ensure that the F-35C Lightning II will begin flight test on-schedule in 2009. This important step is vital to our commitment to fielding the F-35C for the U.S. Navy as planned in 2015," said Maj. Gen Charles R. Davis, the Defense Department's F-35 Lightning II Program Executive Officer. "The F-35 carrier variant will give the Navy a powerful, multi-role strike fighter that can begin to assume the duties of the F/A-18 Hornet A/B/C/D aircraft that have been successfully protecting and extending the reach of the U.S. fleet since 1983."
Source :
Northrop Grumman Corporation
Reports about Northrop Grumman Corporation
Recent News from Northrop Grumman Corporation
previous page 
homepage 
print this page 
tell-a-friend
click to enlarge