When will the F-22 production line reach the point at which it will start shutting down without more orders? Sometime in summer of 2008, according to Larry Lawson, Lockheed Martin’s F-22 program manager. The long-lead items on the Raptor need to be ordered about 30 months before they are installed on the airplane, Lawson said Tuesday at AFA’s Air & Space Conference in Washington. The last of 183 planned Raptors rolls out of Lockheed’s Marietta, Ga. plant in 2011.
The Air Force wants more companies able to produce its new, multi-use, anti-radar missile that one expert says will prove vital in any future peer conflict and would be in high demand for the war in Iran if stocks were available now.