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<b>Recent JSF Design Integration and Maturation Review A 'Rollup,'</b> Program Says (Posted: Wednesday, April 21, 2004)
[Defense Daily, April 21, 2004]

By Lorenzo Cortes

...Echoing recent sentiment from Secretary of the Navy Gordon England about the importance of the STOVL variant of the JSF, Hudson cited STOVL as the key of the entire program.

"We know that we're going to spend a lot of this calendar year here working on making sure that we can attain the STOVL basing parameters," [Maj. Gen.] Hudson said. <b>"Remember what I said in here, the kind of the linchpin for performance is the STOVL short takeoff and the vertical bring-back. That's the hardest, the toughest thing we have to do in the program, really."</b>


<i>They are having trouble showing the STOVL version has any useful bringback in the vertical landing mode. Time and major money can fix it, but will there be enough patience (steady funding) to see it through?</i>

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<b>Bloomberg: LM To Spend Up to Nine Months on JSF Design</b> (Posted: Thursday, April 22, 2004)
[Bloomberg, April 22, 2004]

By Edmond Lococo

April 22 (Bloomberg) -- Lockheed Martin Corp., the top U.S. defense contractor, will devote as long as nine months to improving the design of its Joint Strike Fighter, and study ways to control the aircraft's weight, President Robert Stevens said.

<b>Lockheed will bring in outside experts and Department of Defense experts to help with the "concentrated design effort,'' Stevens, 52, told reporters attending the company's annual meeting in Fort Worth, Texas.</b> The company still expects the Joint Strike Fighter to make its first flight in 2006, Chief Executive Vance Coffman, 59, said at the briefing.

The Joint Strike Fighter is intended to be built in three models for the Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps and U.K. Royal Navy with 80 percent common parts. The program's estimated cost jumped to $244 billion -- including research, development and procurement of 2,457 aircraft -- from $199 billion because of an extension of the current development phase.

"We're discovering now, with higher confidence much earlier on in the program, the likely predicted weight,'' Stevens said. "That gives us time while the airplane is still being designed on paper to examine that design to find out how to optimize it.''

Bethesda, Maryland-based Lockheed's shares rose 58 cents to $46.57 at 11:49 a.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. They are down 9.4 percent this year.



<i>"We're from the government and we're here to help you" are not welcome words. Management is no longer able to keep the dogs off the working stiffs. The "likely predicted weight" is probably showing that the takeoff performance of the "B" model is approaching the "C" capability and the vertical landing bringback weight is approaching fumes in the fuel tanks level.</i>

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