#F 35 COCKPIT HIGH RESOLUTION UPGRADE#
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'Pilots' could take off and attack either a fighter jet or a ship.Įdwards, first in the cockpit, went after an aircraft. Those who jumped in didn't wear the helmet - instead, they could glance up at a screen overhead for a computer simulation of what the helmet would show.įive other screens gave a partially wraparound view of the battlefield, out on the Chesapeake Bay. It wasn't set up to completely mimic what F-35 pilots experience, even setting aside the lack of movement. But the big draw was the separate 'cockpit demonstrator.' Participants could try on the helmet and see imagery from a flight over the Eastern Shore. 'We're not invisible, but we are very, very, very difficult to find with a radar,' said Gary Hentz, director of tactical aviation programs at Lockheed's Washington operations. The jet's 360-degree 'situational awareness system,' projected onto the helmet's visor to give pilots an unobstructed view of sky, ground and everything else. And the F-35 still would be stealthier, he said.

#F 35 COCKPIT HIGH RESOLUTION UPGRADE#

He brought up expenses, saying that the military would be 'hard pressed' to buy a current-generation fighter jet and upgrade it with necessary sensors for what the Air Force version of the F-35 will cost per plane in full production. … Probably nobody in this room owns a 24-year-old car. 'These are the aircraft that our young pilots are taking into harm's way every day,' he said. He put the average age of currently flying Air Force fighter aircraft at 24 years. Thirty-four years later, that's still the Air Force's front-line fighter, he said. He and other suppliers were on hand for the Lockheed and Northrop Grumman event Thursday, along with elected officials and camera-toting reporters.Ĭonroy, speaking to the crowd at the National Electronics Museum, said he was among the first to fly the F-16 for the Air Force in 1979. 'But that number could grow considerably over the coming years as the program ramps up,' said David Copenhaver, the company's president. From their perspective, more jets mean more jobs.īaltimore-based RESCO Defense, which supplies component electronics parts for the F-35, has two of its 10 employees working on the program. Maryland F-35 contractors look forward to faster production - the anticipated full-out pace is about 200 a year. President Barack Obama's budget request for the fiscal year beginning in October asks for funding to buy 29 of the jets, the same number he requested for the current year.

So far, funding for purchases is flat, Stifel's Loomis said. So the single most important thing we can do right now, and we obviously need the help of the government to do this, is to keep that production rate climbing.'

'The costs continue to come down because we're learning to build the aircraft better,' Conroy said.īeyond that, he added, 'The way you continue to save money and bring costs down … is by building them in quantity. Lockheed, which says every flight-test operation has growing pains, insists it is reining in the expense of construction.

#F 35 COCKPIT HIGH RESOLUTION SIMULATOR#

The company is running its own simulator event next week on Capitol Hill. Boeing, which lost the race to build the jet, is pitching its cheaper Super Hornet strike fighter to Canada as that country re-evaluates whether to buy the F-35. Contractors, for instance, still are working to fix deficiencies in the helmet-mounted display that are so significant, they're also developing a second helmet design in case the first can't be used, the GAO said.Īnd a Pentagon memo, written in February and acquired by the Project on Government Oversight, identified a list of 'serious' problems found in testing, including a potential fire risk in the fuel system and lack of lightning protection.Ĭompetitors see a potential opportunity. The agency said program performance is improving in some areas, but problems remain. The Pentagon originally expected that the jets would be in full production by last year, rather than still in testing.

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