Marietta Plant Ships First F-35 Core

Lockheed Martin’s Marietta manufacturing plant has completed and shipped its , the company announced Wednesday.

“The delivery of this center wing is doubly important for Lockheed Martin’s Marietta site. Not only does it usher in a new era of aircraft assembly, but it also continues a strong fifth-generation fighter tradition inherent to this facility,” said , a Lockheed Martin vice president and the Marietta general manager.

The center wing is the core of the fighter jet, where the wings attach. A company facility in Fort Worth, TX, handles final assembly of all F-35 components.

Center-wing production began in Marietta on July 30, 2010, and will keep more than 600 workers busy once the plant reaches full production in 2015.

Marietta’s first center wing will be part of the 25th F-35, which the company said will be an F-35B, the type that can conduct short takeoffs and vertical landings.

The U.S. military has agreed to buy 2,443 F-35 Lightning IIs, and American allies have signed on to buy almost 700 more.

But Flightglobal reports that the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee wants to cut $695 million from the F-35 program and freeze production at 32 planes per year in fiscal 2012 and 2013.

“The F-35 fighter represents the future of air supremacy, and the Marietta team is proud to contribute to this historic program,” Cooper said in a news release.

The completion of the first F-35 center wing is just the latest of several milestones at the Marietta facility:

• The plant delivered the company’s sixth C-130J Super Hercules cargo plane to Dyess Air Force Base in Texas last Thursday.

“The Super Herc provides our airmen with a new tool to accomplish their world-class mission done better than ever," said 18th Air Force commander Lt. Gen. Robert Allardice, whose command includes the unit that received the C-130J, the 317th Airlift Group.

Dyess will have 28 C-130J aircraft by 2013.

• The same day, Lockheed Martin announced that the fifth of six Super Hercules planes built for the Indian air force had flown out of ahead of schedule. The final plane is due to be shipped next month.

• On Sept. 6, a piece of Lockheed’s Marietta history reached its final destination at the Museum of Aviation at Robins Air Force Base.

A C-130E, completed at the Marietta plant in April 1964, made its last flight after missions that took it around the world, including a hostage rescue mission known as Operation Red Dragon in the Congo in November 1964, Air America operations in Laos from 1971 to 1973, and 16 years flying out of Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines.

• Meanwhile, work began in July on the final F-22A Raptor to be built in Marietta. It’s due to be delivered in the spring to the Air Force, which slashed its original order for the fighter aircraft to fewer than 200 to save money.

The F-22 has never flown in combat.