Two F-14s Return Safely After Colliding

Two F-14A Tomcats operating from USS Enterprise (CVN 65) in the Red Sea collided with each other while conducting basic daytime fighter maneuvers Feb. 2. No one was injured during the incident, and both aircraft landed safely aboard Enterprise. One F-14 sustained minor damage to its right wingtip, and the other’s right vertical stabilizer had nearly been sheared off. The Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 1 F-14s are “Checkmates” from Fighter Squadron (VF) 211, home-based at Naval Air Station Oceana, Va. The incident is under investigation, and Enterprise is still able to continue its present mission. The Enterprise Carrier Strike Group is currently deployed to the U.S. 5th Fleet area of responsibili

Moving Line Could Save $300 Million for Lockheed Martin

Why not? It worked for Henry Ford. The first-ever continuous moving assembly line for a combat fighter jet is under consideration by the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter team. Adopting such an approach could increase production efficiency, reduce floor space and avoid an estimated $300 million in expenses over the life of the program. In late January, members of the F-35 production team from Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and BAE SYSTEMS gathered on the Lockheed Martin factory floor in Fort Worth to begin laying out a preliminary plan for a continuous moving line. Using a full-scale F-35 model, the team simulated processes for installing aircraft systems as the jet crept along an imagin

100th Aircraft Produced

The bad guys don't like them but who else wouldn't marvel at an unmanned aircraft? Well, don't answer that. General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc., a manufacturer of unmanned aircraft systems, announced Thursday that it has produced the one-hundredth Predator remotely piloted aircraft for the U.S. Air Force. Predator has provided the U.S. with intelligence, surveillance, targeting and reconnaissance information on combat areas deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan and the Balkans since 1995, logging over sixty percent of all its flight hours in combat. Predator is also in use by the U.S. Navy and Italian Air Force.  Predator 100, like its predecessors, will be flown on an instrument flight plan in National Air Space f