With production of the F-22 Raptor fighter jet winding down, employees at Lockheed Martin's Marietta facility have been looking to the company's delay-plagued F-35 Lightning II fighter program to keep many of them in work.
They got the news they wanted with the formal announcement this week that assembly of the center wing on the stealth fighter will be starting, and soon, at the Marietta plant. Preliminary work starts Friday with a startup crew of 10, with employment on the project expected to reach about 600 by the time full production is under way in 2016.
The company said 175 employees now on the F-22 line eventually will be put to work on the new aircraft, which is smaller and cheaper than the F-22. Another 425 workers will be hired over time for the F-35 production line. Total employment at the plant stands at 7,800.
The F-35 is primarily assembled at Lockheed Martin's Fort Worth, Texas, plant. Some work was expected to come to Marietta, but the number of jobs was uncertain.
"This comes at a real good time," said Denise Rakestraw, president of Local 709 of the International Association of Machinists, which represents 2,593 workers at the Marietta plant. Employees now working on the F-22, she said, "can just transition over."
Production is expected to continue for many years, offering the plant and its employees some security.
Total project cost is currently pegged at $300 billion for 3,181 planes. They will be used by the Air Force, Navy and Marines and by eight partner nations in the project.
Production of the F-22 continues to ramp down, following a Pentagon decision to cap production. The Marietta plant has delivered 163 of of a scheduled total of 187 planes. The plant continues to work on other aircraft including the C-130J cargo plane.
U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., called the announcement "great news for Marietta," and U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., added, "The skill and expertise of its employees makes Lockheed Martin's Marietta facility a natural fit for the F-35's center wing production."
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