A Look At How America Makes Its F-35 Stealth Fighter

The F-35 Lightning II fighter production facilities at Lockheed Martin in Fort Worth, Texas. Courtesy of Lockheed Martin

National Interest: Inside Look: How America Makes Its F-35 Stealth Fighter

From inside the factory.

Key point: Reducing the heat emissions, or thermal signature, is also known to be of vital importance to preserving stealth.

(Ft. Worth, Texas) -- Filled with stacks of fuselage panels, engine components and a wide assortment of pipes, electronics and avionics, the spralling F-35 construction facility in Ft. Worth, Texas, resembles a small city filled with engineers, mechanics, electricians and airplanes at various stages of construction.

While some stations include vertically-hanging airplane wings, rudders, pipes and intricate collections of wires running through the fuselage, others contain little more than an assortment of seemingly disconnected small parts. Farther along the mile-long construction strip, heavily trafficked by workers, builders and engineers, there are bays with nearly completed F-35 with a light-green exterior. These “about to be finished” F-35s, roll into a separate environmentally-controlled hanger where they await a final coat of blended gray paint - giving the aircraft its color.

Read more ....

WNU Editor: A brief summary on what building a F-35 entails.