The manufacturer of the F-35 said Friday the program is going swimmingly. In a statement for the press responding to an unfounded report of a significant cost overrun in the multi-billion-dollar stealth fighter project (see above), Lockheed Martin said its efforts are on budget and on track. “The conventional and the short takeoff and vertical landing aircraft are progressing well through their flight test programs,” the company wrote. Lockheed also stated, “The carrier version design and development is moving forward on schedule, and integration and verification of the mission system suite continues in parallel on our cooperative avionics test bed aircraft.” Further, “Production activities are accelerating with all development aircraft and now the first four low-rate initial production aircraft are in assembly,” the company said.
The Air Force is on track to reach its annual goal of graduating 1,500 new pilots that had proved elusive to this point, one year after the service launched a sweeping overhaul of its undergraduate pilot training program, Air Education and Training Command said Sept. 14.
