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I saw where the F-35 gets one of it's most classified features, and it's amazing
I saw where the F-35 gets one of it's most classified features, and it's amazing
Amanda MaciasMay 19, 2015, 16:24 IST
Lockheed Martin"This room is the most advanced painting facility in the world," retired US Air Force pilot and F-35 simulation instructor Rick Royer told me as we toured Lockheed Martin's highly secure plane in Fort Worth, Texas.
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The Aircraft Final Finishes bay is where America's most expensive weapons system gets coated with a highly classified stealth technology, which makes it invisible to radar.
After the jet is assembled and before it can take flight, three laser-guided robots apply the "Radar-Absorbing Material" (RAM) to each of Lockheed Martin's F-35 Lightning II variant aircrafts.
Here's all we know (and can share) about how the F-35 gets it's invisibility cloak:
First, each of the F-35 variant aircrafts are assembled in Lockheed Martin's mile long production facility.Courtesy of Lockheed Martin
Once an F-35 is ready to leave the production line, it is carefully rolled ...
... into the windowless, multistory, 226,000-square-foot Aircraft Final Finishes (AFF) complex.
The jet is placed in one of two paint bays where three laser-guided robots are programmed to spray RAM on all surfaces except the tails and various parts that are coated at a separate area called the Robotic Component Finishing System.
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According to a SAE International report, the first coating process was completed on a F-35B in 2008 and took three days.
Currently Lockheed Martin's AFF facility services 7 aircrafts a month and is expected to increase to 17 jets by 2020.