Rolling Meadows workers get a test drive of new stealth fighter

Let's land this F-35B Lightning II stealth fighter, weighing many tons, vertically on that parking lot.

That's the kind of big, video-game type fun that Northrop Grumman employees and people representing about 30 other subcontractors of the new jet had Wednesday when Lockheed Martin brought a cockpit simulator to Rolling Meadows.

Still, the aircraft is very serious. It is, after all, a fighter that carries bombs and guns and is designed for warfare. When it is ready for the U.S. military to actually use in 2012, each F-35 will cost taxpayers an average of about $60 million, according to Lockheed Martin, and there are reports it could be much higher.

That price tag brings up why the F-35 is so important to Northrop Grumman and other companies. Northrop designs, develops and makes sensors and some radar in its Rolling Meadows location that help the plane perform amazing feats.

The project supports about 350 jobs in Rolling Meadows and as many as 4,900 positions with Illinois companies. It provides $380 million in salaries and expenditures in the state and is expected to bring $1.8 billion over the life of the aircraft, said Jeff Palombo, vice president and general manager at the Rolling Meadows campus.

The sensors provide the pilot with a 360 degree view around the plane. They feed information to various screens, including a visor in the pilot's helmet. Thus if the pilot looks down he or she can see exactly what is under the plane. The sensors also provide the pilot with good night vision.

This is much safer than turning the plane to get a view of the ground, said Jim Parish, a flight instructor of Lockheed, and it makes the plane more difficult to see on radar and from the ground.

Jim Losito, a manager for manufacturing at Northrop Grumman, said sitting in the cockpit demonstrator "tied everything together for us.

"It's a product we build and we have pride in," he said. "It's like taking a test drive: You have more of a feel for the capabilities when you actually touch the controls."

Jim Ackleson, director of surveillance programs for Northrop Grumman, said a device also warns the pilot if missiles or threatening aircraft are in the area.

Thirty years ago pilots like Denny Littrell, now an instructional pilot for Lockheed Martin, took directions for travel and bombing runs through his earphones and wrote them down. In the F-35, information is sent electronically to the cockpit and the munitions system.

The red buttons on a very sophisticated stick are for dropping bombs and shooting guns. And it's amazing to see screens that show how pilots would see moving vehicles to follow and destroy from 30,000 feet in the sky.

One thing making the F-35 more affordable - if that's the right word - is that three versions of the same basic plane are planned for the Air Force, Navy and Marines, based on their particular needs, said company officials. Thus they can be made in the same factories, with maintenance and training done jointly.

The Air Force plane might be called the conventional model. The U.S. Navy version is designed to land and take off on aircraft carriers, and the one designed for the Marines can land vertically on a cushion of air its engines create. This can be accomplished in an area about 75-by-75 feet, said Parish.

Current plans call for Lockheed Martin, which is currently flight testing some of the planes, to make almost 3,200 fighters over the next 25 years for the U.S. military and its allies, eight of whom have already signed on, said Stephen Callaghan, Lockheed Martin's director F-35 Washington Operations.

The F-35 will replace many aging types of military aircraft.