Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) has delivered its first F-35 centre fuselage to Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin at a ceremony held at TAI’s facilities in Ankara, Turkey. It is the first F-35 centre fuselage manufactured by TAI as an international manufacturing partner and subcontractor to Northrop Grumman on the F-35 program.
The centre fuselage will be installed into a US Air Force aircraft at Lockheed Martin’s facilities in Fort Worth, Texas.
Once the program reaches full rate production, TAI will support F-35 final assembly lines in the United States and Italy by shipping one centre fuselage every 10 days. TAI’s centre fuselages will be integrated into the Turkish F-35 aircraft as well as other participating nations’ aircraft.
In addition, TAI is the sole source for centre fuselage metallic assemblies for the F-35A, selected composite components for all F-35 variants, and is one of two sources for composite air inlet ducts for F-35A, and air-to-ground alternate mission pylons for all F-35 variants.
