Philip Smart | Adelaide
The first Lockheed Martin F-35A Lightning II aircraft to be assembled outside the United States has rolled out of the Italian Cameri Final Assembly and Checkout Facility near Turin.
One of eight F-35s currently being assembled in Cameri, AL-1 rolled out on March 12, with first flight expected later in 2015.
Owned by the Italian Ministry of Defence and operated by Finmeccanica-Alenia Aermacchi and Lockheed Martin, the Cameri facility is the designated F-35 airframe maintenance, repair, overhaul and upgrade facility for the European region.
It will build all 90 Italian F-35A and F-35B aircraft and F-35As for the Royal Netherlands Air Force and is also contracted to build F-35 wing sections, with the first shipset completed and ready for shipping to the Forth Worth production line.
The facility has 22 buildings with more than one million square feet of covered work space, housing 11 assembly stations and five maintenance, repair, overhaul, and upgrade bays.
It employs 750 people.