PALMDALE, Calif., Oct. 5 (UPI) -- The first of 43 center fuselages for F-35 Lightning II aircraft to be assembled in Japan has been produced by Northrop Grumman in California.
The center fuselage, the core structure of the aircraft, is for the conventional takeoff and landing variant of the F-35 and will be integrated with the plane's forward fuselage/cockpit and wings produced by Lockheed Martin, and the aft fuselage produced by BAE Systems, by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in Japan.