Into the Wild Blue: Lockheed Martin Rolls Out F-35 Demonstrator

I did two barrel rolls after smoking two bogeys, the bad guys.

“It’s required,” said Rick Royer of Lockheed Martin, who guided me through the F-35 flight simulation.

I watched their planes spiral down, trailing smoke.

Lockheed Martin unveiled its F-35 Lightning II mobile demonstrator for employees, elected officials and the media at Innoventor Inc. in Earth City Thursday. Even St. Louis County Executive Charlie Dooley took a turn at the virtual controls.

At the simulation, the journalists and officials opted for missions from bombing runs to landing on aircraft carriers. But Top Gun scenes played in my mind. I wanted to shoot something.

The flight simulation—and taking out the two-enemy aircraft—was much easier than a game of Halo, at least with Royer’s constant direction and assistance.

“The plane flies itself,” said Jackie Jackson, retired test pilot for and McDonnell Douglas. He said the AV-8A Harriers he piloted in the military were very difficult to fly by comparison.

“With this, you focus on the mission, not flying the plane,” Jackson said.

Lightning strikes locally

Kent Schien, founder and chief executive officer of Innoventor, said his company started working on the F-35 project back in 2004, when it had 50 employees. Now, Innoventor has 140 employees.

Schien said the F-35 project “has been a big part of our growth, a big part of the backbone of our organization.”

The Earth City company supplies tools that create the F-35 wings and tools that mate the fuselage, midbody, wing and aft body.

Innoventor, also a Boeing supplier, is one of Lockheed Martin’s 25 direct suppliers in Missouri, with a $35.5-million impact spread across the state. The economic impact doesn’t end there, Schien said.

“We have a large supply chain right here in St. Louis,” Schien said. “We currently have about 50 companies in the St. Louis area that work for us on the F-35 project. Many of those folks, their weekly payrolls are dependent upon us supplying them work.”

Nationwide, Lockheed Martin F-35 project suppliers are in 47 states and indirectly generate about 127,000 jobs, said Joel Malone, Lockheed Martin’s senior manager for F-35 Air Force customer engagement and business development.

Lightning multi-tasks

The plan is for the three F-35 variants to serve the Air Force, Marines and Navy. The variants allow conventional take-off and vertical landing, among other moves and features.

The plane will cover strike missions, air-to-air battles and surveillance, one plane doing the duties now handled by the F-15, F-16, F-18 and A-10.

“The stealth capability is vital,” Malone said.

As an Air Force pilot, Malone flew and F-16 against an F-22 in a training session. The F-35 is based on the F-22 platform.

“I got beat to a pulp,” he said. “It could see me at significant distances, but I couldn’t see it.”

Zooming in

In May, The New York Times gave an update on F-35 test flights.

The F-35 project has gotten its share of criticism due to cost overruns, questions on performance record and rollout delays as outlined by The Washington Post.

Malone acknowledged the F-35 project has been criticized for being costly, but he said Lockheed Martin is in early production stages, building just one to two jets per month. In full-scale production at 18 to 20 jets per month, the company will realize economies of scale that will bring prices down, he said.

He said 70 percent of the plane’s three variants’ parts are identical.

Amazing Airplanes compared Lockheed Martin and Boeing’s efforts at securing the joint strike fighter project, awarded to Lockheed Martin in 2001.

For this journalist, the (simulated) view looked pretty promising.