PALMDALE – Northrop Grumman Corporation has delivered, on schedule, the center fuselage for the first F-35 Joint Strike Fighter to be purchased by Israel, an F-35A conventional takeoff and landing variant designated AS-1, company executives announced Wednesday.
A core structure of the F-35 aircraft, the center fuselage was produced on Northrop Grumman’s F-35 Integrated Assembly Line at its Palmdale Aircraft Integration Center of Excellence.
“The delivery of the AS-1 center fuselage is a significant addition to the growing list of allied countries that have invested in owning and fielding the fifth generation F-35 aircraft,” said Brian Chappel, vice president and F-35 program manager, Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems. “It also adds momentum to the success of our highly automated Integrated Assembly Line, which is helping increase the production rate, quality and affordability of the F-35 program.”
To date, Northrop Grumman has completed center fuselages for F-35 customers in eight countries, including the U.S.
As a principal member of the Lockheed Martin-led F-35 industry team, Northrop Grumman designed and produces the center fuselage for all three F-35 variants: the F-35A; the F-35B short takeoff vertical landing variant; and the F-35C carrier variant.
The company produced the AS-1 center fuselage as part of the eighth low rate initial production lot of F-35s. AS-1 is the 39th center delivered by Northrop Grumman from Palmdale this year.
Israel has ordered 33 F-35As under the U.S. government’s foreign military sales program. These jets are similar to the F-35As produced for F-35 international partner countries, except they will require minor software and hardware modifications to accommodate several Israel-provided avionics components.
Lockheed Martin Aeronautics will perform final assembly and checkout of the F-35s in Fort Worth, Texas. The first Israeli F-35 is slated for delivery in 2016.
[Information via news release from Northrop Grumman.]
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Tom says
I see where Boeing and Lockheed has protest the 60 Billion$ contact Putting everything on hold for a maximum 100 days for review. From my understanding there is a small chance Nothrop Grumman could lose the contract. Anyone out there with more information on this please let me or us know.
Tim Scott says
Every contract ever awarded is protested by the competition. Some get lost, most don’t. If there is anyone in a position to have more information, and they shared it, they would be promptly detained for espionage. Cross your fingers, pray if that’s your inclination, be confident that barring some strong political intervention the bidding process is unlikely to get overturned…but until there is some official announcement it would be wise to ignore anyone who claims to know anything.
rf says
Boeing just did that to depress the price of NG shares so they can buy out the part of NG that will build the B3… Just like they did with McDonnell Douglas when Boeing wanted the C17 contract etc.
Tom says
Good insight rf, what you are saying makes perfect sense…… That Time Scott took this all the way to Niagara falls.
Tim Scott says
Great insight…except for the fact Northrop share prices have not responded at all. Probably because, as I said, every contract awarded gets challenged, but very few actually get reversed. To effectively depress share prices there would have to be a more serious expectation that the challenge would succeed.
But good on you Tom, you just go on basing your decisions on “anyone who disagrees with Tim Scott must be right.” LOL.
RLGRL says
I was told they put a clause into this bidding process to try and avoid the usual protests that always happen. Supposedly each bid was independent audited and vetted to avoid the chances of a protest…
Has it already been protested???
My life has been on pause waiting to hear the outcome of the bidding for the past year, and is STILL on pause waiting to get a GO date…UGH…hurry up and wait!