BOEING GLOOMY FIRM DOESN'T EXPECT INVITATION TO JSF PROJECT.Byline: Jim Skeen Staff Writer PALMDALE - Boeing is pessimistic about its prospects for joining Lockheed Martin's joint strike fighter A strike fighter is a fighter aircraft which is also capable of attacking surface targets, including ships. It differs from an attack aircraft in that the aircraft remains a capable fighter. team. Lockheed Martin For the former company, see . Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) is a leading multinational aerospace manufacturer and advanced technology company formed in 1995 by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta. , awarded the contract in October for what is billed as the Pentagon's richest aircraft production program, had been in discussions with Boeing about letting in its former JSF (JavaServerFaces) A standard framework of components for building rich user interfaces for Java applications. JavaServer Faces run on the server, but are displayed on the client. JSF - JavaServer Faces competitor. Boeing will continue to pursue the possibility, a spokesman said last week, but prospects are bleak. ``At this point we're more pessimistic than optimistic,'' said Boeing spokesman Todd Blecher. Blecher said the company could not elaborate more on the discussions. Since losing the contract to Lockheed Martin, Boeing has dismantled its joint strike fighter program The Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) became synonymous with the later F-35 Lightning II, however until 2001 the term was applied to the competition between the Boeing X-32 and Lockheed Martin X-35. and all of its JSF personnel have been reassigned to other work. Lockheed Martin is partnered with Northrop Grumman Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC) is an aerospace and defense conglomerate that is the result of the 1994 purchase of Grumman by Northrop. The company is the third largest defense contractor for the U.S. and BAE Systems BAE Systems British manufacturer of aircraft, missiles, avionics, naval vessels, and other aerospace and defense products. BAE Systems was formed (1999) from the merger of British Aerospace (BAe) with Marconi Electronic Systems. , a British aerospace British Aerospace (BAe) was a UK aircraft and defence systems manufacturer, now part of BAE Systems. History The company was formed as a statutory corporation on April 29, 1977 as a result the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Act. company, on the joint strike fighter program. In October, the Lockheed Martin team beat Boeing for a $25 billion, 126-month contract covering work referred to as the System Development and Demonstration phase. The phase involves the construction of 14 aircraft to be flight-tested and eight others to be tested on the ground. The first flight is scheduled to occur in four years. Boeing and Lockheed Martin each built two prototypes in Palmdale for the competition Lockheed Martin won. The joint strike fighter is being developed to replace the Air Force's F-16s and A-10s and the Marine Corps' AV-8 Harrier F-18 fighters. The joint strike fighter also will augment the Navy's F/A-18 aircraft. The United Kingdom is also a customer. The Royal Air Force wants the aircraft to replace its Sea Harrier and GR-7 jets. Combined, the United States and United Kingdom plan to buy more than 3,000 joint strike fighters. The value of the production of those jets is estimated at more than $200 billion. There is a potential for an equal number of sales to allied nations. CAPTION(S): photo Photo: (color) Lockheed Martin's design for the joint strike fighter won the lucrative contract over Boeing's, but Boeing may still play a role. |
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