Lockheed Martin JSF shape finalized with improvements

Sea Power, Sep 2002

The external design of the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) being designed by Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company has been finalized by the company and is "nearly indistinguishable" from the design of the X-35 concept demonstrator, company officials announced.

Engineers from Lockheed and its principal partners, Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems, have made several design changes including:

* Extending the forward fuselage by five inches to better accommodate avionics and sensors;

Moving the horizontal stabilizer two inches rearward to maintain stability and control with the extended forward fuselage;

* Raising the top surface of the fuselage by one inch along the centerline, increasing the fuel capacity of the aircraft by 300 pounds;

* Adding slightly more twist to the wing camber on the carrier-based version to improve handling qualities and transonic performance; and

* Slightly adjusting the positions of the vertical stabilizers to improve performance.

"When you look at this final design and compare it to the one we flew, it's clear that the two aircraft are essentially identical, save for fine tuning," said Tom Burbage, executive vice president and JSF program manager for Lockheed Martin. 'That means the outstanding performance of our X-35 JSF concept-demonstration aircraft can also be expected of our production model."

The JSF program's next milestone, Preliminary Design Review, is scheduled for March 2003.

In a related development, BAE Systems has delivered its first hardware for the JSF program's SDD (System Development and Demonstration) phase to Lockheed Martin. The Vehicle Management Computer (VMC) development processor will be used for software development for the VMC, which performs vehicle systems control computing functions and interfaces with a high-speed serial network.