NORTHROP REACHES MILESTONES JSF FUSELAGE SECTION WORK CELEBRATED IN PALMDALE.

Byline: JIM SKEEN Staff Writer

PALMDALE -- Northrop Grumman celebrated on Monday the completion of the first center fuselage section for the Marine Corps variant of the F-35 joint strike fighter and the start of assembly of the first fuselage for the Navy.

On the heels of the successful first flight of the Air Force version of the F-35 on Friday, the JSF team celebrated the two milestones at Northrop Grumman's plant at Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale. Representatives of both military services and Lockheed Martin, the aircraft's prime contractor, attended the event.

``This is a program we don't worry about,'' said Col. Robert Walsh, the Marine Corps' assistant deputy commandant for aviation. ``This is a program that works. We're going to look back at this program 10, 15 years from now and say, what a success story.''

The center fuselage for the Marine Corps variant will be delivered early next month to Lockheed Martin's plant in Fort Worth, Texas, where final assembly of the jets will be performed. The Navy version will be delivered late next year.

The fuselages are the first of thousands that will be built for the program. The U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps, and the United Kingdom's Royal Air Force and Royal Navy plan to acquire a total of 2,581 F-35s.

Italy, the Netherlands, Turkey, Canada, Australia, Denmark and Norway also are partners in the program and are expected to add about 700 more aircraft to the total, according to program officials. F-35 sales to other international customers could push the final number of aircraft to 4,500 or more.

Northrop Grumman's Palmdale plant is expected to employ several hundred workers over the course of the airplane's production run.

The company also has approximately 240 California suppliers, ranging from ``mom and pop'' shops to giants, such as Raytheon.

In addition to the manufacturing jobs, approximately 1,000 workers will be involved in the flight test program at Edwards Air Force Base.

The jets are being built in a conventional takeoff and landing version for the Air Force, as well as in a version equipped to land on Navy carriers and one for the Marine Corps that can take off and land vertically.

Twenty-one aircraft are being built for the flight test program -- 15 that will actually fly and six others for structural tests and radar tests.

Northrop Grumman officials said the company's assembly line in Palmdale integrates 3-D modeling techniques, state-of-the-art fabrication and tooling equipment and a factory layout similar to that of the automotive industry.

``We are focused on quality, staying on schedule, and affordability,'' said Randy Secor, Northrop Grumman's deputy project manager for the JSF program.

The F-35 is a next-generation, supersonic, stealth aircraft designed to replace the American AV-8B Harrier, A-10, F-16 and F/A-18 Hornet and the United Kingdom's Harrier GR-7 and Sea Harrier.

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