July 2008
National Defense Magazine
By Grace V. Jean
FORT WORTH, Texas — Inside a manufacturing facility so large that workers routinely bike and ride golf carts down paths named after fighter jets, preparations are underway to begin mass production of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.
Lockheed Martin Corp. plans to assemble the stealth plane here on a moving assembly line using digital processes and automation techniques that are new to the defense aerospace sector, says Steve O’Bryan of Lockheed Martin’s F-35 business development team.
Though car manufacturers have built millions of vehicles on automated assembly lines, the concept of moving lines has not been applied to military aircraft since World War II.
Modern warplanes typically have been built in small quantities over the course of many years. The Navy’s F/A-18, which has been in production for more than 20 years, is being built at a rate of 42 aircraft per year. But the F-35 Lightning II is expected to be built at an unprecedented rate — as many as 230 fighters per year.
Lockheed has embraced the moving assembly line concept as the linchpin to produce the next-generation fighter in large enough quantities to satisfy U.S. and international sales.
The U.S. military is buying about 2,500 aircraft. Allied nations are purchasing an additional 500 or so. Lockheed Martin officials are expecting foreign military sales to hike the total number to more than 4,000 Joint Strike Fighters.
“You’re really looking at F-16-like numbers,” says O’Bryan.
Once the line ramps up to full-rate production — possibly as early as 2016 — the company estimates it will assemble about 21 fighters per month, or roughly one aircraft per working day. The moving assembly line is the only way to reach that rate of production, O’Bryan says. The F-35 measures 51 feet in length. “If the plane doesn’t move 51 feet a day … you’re not going to produce one a day.”
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