Lockheed opens new plant

Lockheed Martin opened its new F-16 production line in Greenville, South Carolina with F-16 Block 70 production scheduled for later this year. 400 new jobs will be created. The F-16s will mostly be built for foreign customers. About 3,000 operational F-16s are in service in 25 countries, and the company expects new F-16 production line to build at least 400 more aircraft. In March, Lockheed Martin announced the establishment of the first F-16 Falcon Depot, a maintenance facility for foreign-owned F-16s, in Norway. There have been 4,558 F-16s built since its introduction in 1974.

Also see: http://www.f-16.net/f-16-news-article5141.html

First I thought if they were celebrating a line opening the production will start now, not in November.

So, if Indians decide to buy F-16 (F-21) will Lockheed take production out of Greenville to India according the promise they made? Would these 400 newly employed employees be happy about it?

I would love to see the 5.000 F-16 build.
That would be quite an achievement in these hard economical times.

The YF-16 was "just" a tech demonstrator, and wee what happened? One of the best (and most economical) fighters ever build.

From airborne Ferrari sports car just begging to be thrown around to bomb truck. What a machine.

If they ever manage to "recover" that XL wing the competition would sh*t its pants, and we might be going for 6.000 airframes.

F-35 and F-15X is on the rise. 6000th Viper wont happen but 5000th may well be...

Too bad USAF didnt ordered new F-16s as did in the case of the Eagle

First I thought if they were celebrating a line opening the production will start now, not in November.

So, if Indians decide to buy F-16 (F-21) will Lockheed take production out of Greenville to India according the promise they made? Would these 400 newly employed employees be happy about it?

I found this link in another thread and I quote off it.

https://www.theweek.in/news/india/2019/ ... e-f21.html

Lockheed Martin had previously said an F-16 contract with the Indian Air Force would make India a key hub for the fighter's production and export. However, the company in 2018 announced that F-16 would still be built in South Carolina as another plant in Fort Worth, Texas, transitioned to building the F-35 stealth fighter.

The first F-16 produced in Greenville, S.C., won't be ready to begin flying until late 2022, said Greg Ulmer, Lockheed's vice president of aeronautics.

DUBAI: The first F-16 built at Lockheed Martin’s new production facility in Greenville, S.C., will roll off the assembly a year later than expected due to an international supplier’s ongoing troubles in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, a top Lockheed executive said Monday.

“With COVID and other issues associated with the supply base impacted by COVID, that ramp is taking longer than we envisioned it would,” Greg Ulmer, Lockheed Martin’s vice president for aeronautics, told Breaking Defense in a Nov. 15 interview at the Dubai Airshow.

“So we’re working [on] that, with the first airplane coming off the line in Greenville the fourth quarter of next year,” he said. “We’re about 12 months off our plan.”

https://breakingdefense.com/2021/11/cov ... -facility/