FARNBOROUGH, England – Lockheed Martin Corp., the prime contractor for the U.S. Defense Department’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, has developed a proposal that mostly would solve the aircraft’s problems with excess weight, a company official said July 21.
Tom Burbage, a Lockheed Martin executive vice president who oversees the company’s F-35 efforts, told reporters at the Farnborough Air Show that Lockheed Martin has come up with a combination of weight reductions and thrust-related efficiencies that would have the equivalent effect of losing 2,500 pounds, which is roughly the size of the bulge that Lockheed Martin has been grappling with for more than a year.
The proposal, which focuses on the short takeoff and vertical landing (STOVL) variant, the main source of the weight woes, would shed about 1,700 pounds through a half dozen or so large reductions, as well as hundreds of smaller cuts.
“We’re looking at things that may save one pound,” Burbage said. “But it all adds up.”
Among the biggest modifications eyed for the STOVL JSF is a slight shortening of the weapons bays, which would save about 200 pounds. The change would not affect any of the weapons that the aircraft initially is required to carry, Burbage said.
Lockheed Martin’s proposal would shed another 40 pounds or so by repackaging an actuator that helps the leading edge flap on the front of the wing move up and down.
Besides making the F-35 less heavy, the proposal calls for realizing 800 pounds of more thrust by improving air flows inside the aircraft and by tightening seals on the lift-fan nozzle to make it more efficient.
Although weight has been less of an issue for JSF’s other two variants, the conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL) version and the carrier variant (CV), the CTOL and CV aircraft still would receive many of the modifications proposed for the STOVL jet because their performance would benefit, Burbage said. One change they would not get, though, is the shortening of the weapons bays.
Mid-August review
The Lockheed Martin proposal would not provide all of the “margins” that the company would like to have in case the F-35 gains weight sometime in the future, Burbage said. But it “gets us very close” to where the program should be.
“We’re in the range that we wanted to be in right now,” he said.
The changes suggested by Lockheed Martin would not be made to the first of 22 test aircraft that the company is to build for the program, but the remaining 21 jets would receive the modifications.
The company plans to formally present its proposal to the Defense Department’s JSF program office in mid-August and to a high-level Pentagon panel in October. While not commenting on the specifics of Lockheed Martin’s proposal, Navy Rear Adm. Steven Enewold, the head of the program office, suggested that he believes the company is on the right track.
“My view is that we’re getting to closure on what the configuration ought to be,” Enewold said.
To provide more time to fix the weight problems, DOD has instituted a series of delays in the program’s schedule, including moving the first flight test from October 2005 to August 2006 and the first fielding from 2010 to 2012 (DAILY, June 29).
Lockheed Martin is developing JSF for the U.S. Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy and for a host of expected and potential foreign customers. The Air Force revealed earlier this year that it intends to buy the STOVL variant in addition to the CTOL. The Marine Corps plans to acquire the STOVL version, while the Navy hopes to field the CV variant.
In 2004 dollars, the CTOL version is expected to cost in the low- to-mid $40 million range per aircraft. The projected price tag of the CV and STOVL variants is about $10 million more than that, Burbage said.
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July 23, 2004 at 12:57 am