At $200 billion, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) is the biggest defense contract, ever. As such, it represents a tremendous source of revenue, not only for prime contractor Lockheed Martin Corp. (Bethesda, MD), but for subcontractors like Northrop Grumman Corp. (NGC, Los Angeles), which is assembling the aircraft's center fuselage bay at the company's Integrated Systems facility in El Segundo, CA.
The project also represents a tremendous assembly challenge, due to its complexity and the need to produce the aircraft on time, under budget and under safe working conditions. Ultimately, the full JSF program calls for building 3,000 aircraft at the rate of one a day beginning in mid-2008.