Aviation Week Market Supplement September 10, 2007

F-35: THE WORLD’S FIRST TRULY GLOBAL WEAPON SYSTEM ALLIANCE prepare bids. “Initially it worked, but as [the State Dept. and the U.S. Congress] took a closer look, they imposed some additional requirements that made it difficult for second- and third-tier suppliers to participate. For them, it became even more cumbersome than the original TAA [Technical Assistance Agreements] process.” Applying lessons learned from the bid process, the team then developed a simpli- and what kinds of technologies would be involved. Now, as the team moves into low-rate initial production and creation of sustainment processes, yet another set of ITAR and export/import regulations is needed. The team is developing a white paper that outlines plans by product, technology and company. The initial thinking is that several over-arching TAAs will be submitted, instead of thousands of discrete TAAs. tems for plug-and-play replacement in the field, rather than repair. Some of the advanced systems required new power/ cooling capabilities. The aircraft also needed to lose 5,000 lb. And the 6,000 people involved in development, design, production and sustainment of the aircraft needed access to design configurations, all with varying degrees of approved access. “The F-35 is far more complex than legacy programs,” says Adriaan Leyte, vice The most comprehensive flight test program in military history was launched when the F-35 Lightning II first flew on Dec. 15, 2006, from Lockheed Martin’s Fort Worth facility. fied process for the program’s post-bid phase. The U.S. government formed its own integrated product team (IPT) to address the thousands of import/export requests that would stream in. “The idea was to break up the logjam,” Burbage says. The IPT, composed of Defense Dept. and State Dept. officials, focused on moving requests through in a timely manner. The F-35 industry team, in turn, developed a technology roadmap— an electronic spreadsheet—so that the government IPT could see how the volume of requests could be expected to ebb and flow www.aviationweek.com/awst The process will require bilateral national agreements, as well as some new considerations to deal with sensitive software. In addition, as sustainment processes are refined, there will be more requirements. The global sustainment IPT is looking at where ITAR could be an impediment. Burbage believes this will be important to U.S. legislators seeking reform of ITAR and import/export rules. OTHER CHALLENGES RUN PARALLEL F-35 suppliers were asked to come up with new capabilities while designing sys- president at Fokker Elmo. “We were designing the wiring system for the CV (carrier variant), CTOL (conventional takeoff and landing) and Stovl (short takeoff and vertical landing) versions for three service branches and eight international partners—all while adding interoperability, global sustainment and autonomic logistics to the otherwise challenging wiring-design requirements.” Leyte says the multi-site/singleprocess philosophy used by the F-35 team was crucial to completing the work that has been accomplished to date. AVIATION WEEK & SPACE TECHNOLOGY MARKET SUPPLEMENT/SEPTEMBER 10, 2007 S3 http://www.aviationweek.com/awst

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