Quickstep Holdings Limited says that Australia’s first two F-35 fifth-generation fighter aircraft have been sent to RAAF Base Williamtown, part of Australia’s planned 72 F-35 Joint Strike Fighter fleet.
The aircraft features composite components and assemblies manufactured by Quickstep. ‘We currently build 35 separate parts for the F-35, including doors, panels, hatches, external fuselage skins and vertical tail components and we will soon be adding counter-measure flare housings to our F-35 product portfolio,’ said MD and CEO, Mark Burgess.
‘Our production volumes for the F-35 program are growing substantially, in line with the increasing build-plans by Lockheed Martin and its major F-35 partners, Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems, to support orders from the US government and its international F-35 partners. Today there are 340 F-35 aircraft in operation around the global and this will likely increase to more than 3,000 over the life of the program.’
This story is reprinted from material from Quickstep, with editorial changes made by Materials Today. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily represent those of Elsevier.
