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http://www.airforce-magazine.com/DRArch ... Steps.aspxDaily Report
Friday October 08, 2010
The Raptor Clock Runs Down
With just 28 F-22s left to deliver, Lockheed Martin is starting to wrap up the aircraft's production line in Marietta, Ga., say company program officials.
The remaining 13 mid-fuselage assemblies still in work will be completed by April 2011, and the last of 13 aft fuselages in the following month.
In June of 2011, the final In June of 2011, the final 15 wing sets will be finished, and by November 2011—just 13 months from now—the last Raptor will exit the production line.
Delivery of that final F-22 will follow in February 2012, after workers apply its paint, verify its functions, and install its engines.
The company reports that it remains ahead of schedule in delivering F-22s, and that the aircraft produced continue to be of "consistently high quality."
The last F-22 will have tail number 195, taking into account developmental test aircraft.
USAF is actually fielding a force of 186 F-22s. Lockheed has USAF’s approval to preserve F-22 tooling until the service builds a plan to sustain the aircraft, which will require spare parts and assemblies.
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Raptor’s Final Steps
Raptor’s Final Steps:
The last of the Air Force's 187 planned F-22s will enter the production line at Lockheed Martin’s facility in Marietta, Ga., in November, and will emerge from the No. 1 station about nine months later, according to company officials.
This final F-22 – tail number 195—will be delivered to USAF in February 2012.
Lockheed has now delivered 87 F-22s in a row "on time or ahead of schedule" and without defects, George Shultz, the company's F-22 program manager, told reporters last week during a media visit to Marietta.
He said the Air Force has decided to save "all the tooling" for the airplane, pending decisions about how to sustain it in the long term.
The company is filming and documenting procedures on the production line as they are completed for the final time, so that the tooling can be resuscitated for later production of parts or assemblies.
"There are 30,000 tools" involved and as each is used for the last time, it is promptly put into a Conex storage container, said Shultz.
Where the tools will be stored has not yet been decided, he said. But they will be retained at a government-owned, contractor-operated facility "three to five years, at least," he noted.