Ramona Adams
BAE Systems has accomplished 10 percent of its global production requirement under the F-35 Lightning II fighter aircraft program.
BAE said Wednesday the milestone was reached when the company delivered the 318th aft fuselage for an F-35 aircraft from its Samlesbury, Lancashire-based manufacturing facility to Lockheed Martin‘s final assembly and check out line in Fort Worth, Texas.
Lockheed will install the aft fuselage on a U.K. F-35B aircraft variant that will be flown from the European country’s Queen Elizabeth Class aircraft carriers.
More than 3,000 planes are currently on order under the global F-35 program and BAE will perform 15 percent of the work on each aircraft.
The program is expected to sustain 25,000 jobs across more than 500 companies in the U.K. during peak production, BAE noted.
