Navy F-35C to debut next week

[F-111 C/C]

Lockheed Martin’s Fort Worth assembly plant officials announced Wednesday that the company is ready to roll out a test version of the F-35C Lightning II Navy aircraft. This is the latest version of the F-35 joint-strike fighter that is slated to be delivered to the U.S. Navy in 2012.

The first test plane will debut on July 28, 2009, with flight testing scheduled to begin later this year.

The latest F-35C version is designed to accommodate Naval air forces and features catapult take-off abilities as well as an arrested landing mechanism to accommodate the needs of Naval aviators landing on aircraft carriers.

The F-35C is the third installment of the strike fighter and costs $60 million per aircraft, according to John Kent, a spokesman for the F-35C program. The $60 million price tag is based on 2002 cost estimates and is likely to be adjusted for inflation when the planes are eventually delivered to the Navy, the company spokesman said.

Assembly of the F-35Cs will take place at the company's Fort Worth assembly plant, which will add an unknown amount of production jobs, with peak employment levels expected to coincide with the aircraft's peak production levels in 2015 and 2016, Kent said.

Production model deliveries of the Navy aircraft will be delivered in 2012.

Kent said the Navy and Marine Corps. plan to buy approximately 680 airplanes. The Marines will be using the second version of the F-35: the F-35B. About half of the aircraft delivered to the two military agencies will be in the F-35C format.

[AVIATOR]

Yeah but hang on a minute Aard, isn't this the lemon that the socialist press says will fly straight into the ground? I mean, I'm embarrassed to be an Australian now. Can't we throw off the shackles of our alliance with America and join the Warsaw Pact and get fabulous technology?

[F-111 C/C]

I enjoy you sarcasm AVIATOR. I can't wait until the F-35 is flying all over the world and shutting the mouths of all the naysayers.

[AVIATOR]

I enjoy you sarcasm AVIATOR. I can't wait until the F-35 is flying all over the world and shutting the mouths of all the naysayers.

Yeah and all the Sus from our enemies are too scared to come out and are put away in hardened silos so we can't get at them. Meanwhile the RAAF and USAF do barrel rolls over crappy countries that got the cheap and free planes.

[valkyrian]

No, doubt, the F-35 will be a success bcz :

1) the Americans will buy a lot of them

2) Many international partners will buy it

The F-35 will have by the time it will enter service the best electronic suite around, a very low RCS ( i avoid on purpose to say stealthiness as there are also other signatures : visual, IR, EM, audio), it will cost a fortune (good old F-16 days of 30 mil $ are long gone)but do you think that only the numbers will make it a good fighter?

It is by design a formidable bomber with powerful engine - the most powerful single engine fighter- and internal weapons carriage which will enable it to hit fast and hard. 

Do you think that it will be a cost effective aircraft? How easy is to maintain a low RCS frame in shape? If it is difficult and costly, maybe the allies will be forced to buy a lower RCS version.

Forgive me, but the letter "F" for this aircraft doesn't seem the right one. Maybe F/A-35 will be more appropriate....