Lockheed Martin’s F-35 stealth jets are made in Fort Worth — and may soon be based here
When it comes to fighter planes, what’s made in Fort Worth soon may stay in Fort Worth.
The F-35 stealth aircraft is built by Lockheed Martin Aeronautics in Fort Worth, before being shipped out of town to the U.S. military and its allies overseas. The company has made more than 500 F-35s since 2011.
The Air Force Reserve Command has proposed that 24 of the jets be permanently housed at the city’s Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base. The Fort Worth base is adjacent to Lockheed Martin’s sprawling F-35 manufacturing plant, on the western edge of the city.
“Fort Worth is in the lead. There’s no reason to think it won’t happen,” Navy Capt. Jon Townsend, Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base commanding officer, said before a recent public hearing on the proposal at Brewer High School.
The proposal to permanently move the jets to Fort Worth has been dubbed F-35A Operational Beddown by the Air Force Reserves. Fort Worth’s base has already been selected as the preferred alternative, although the Defense Department has identified three other acceptable locations for the aircraft — Davis Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona, Whiteman AFB in Missouri and Homestead Air Reserve Base in Florida.
A federally-required environmental study on the proposed location of the F-35s is underway.
About 50 Fort Worth-area residents attended a recent public hearing on the proposal, and a few spoke in favor of moving the F-35s to Fort Worth.
Among them was Roger Peimann, a board member of the Fort Worth Airpower Council, an organization formed in 1958 to support Carswell Air Force Base, which later became Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base.
Peimann said he wanted to make sure that Fort Worth’s base remains the preferred choice for stationing the F-35s.
“A lot of people think it’s a sure thing, and it’s not,” Peimann said before the hearing. “We need to show support.”
The F-35s would replace a set of 24 F-16s currently based in Fort Worth and used regularly by the Air Force Reserves.
But, Peimann said, the F-35 is the aircraft of the future.
“The F-16s are here, but we don’t know for how much longer,” he said.
During the public hearing, Air Force Col. Tobin Griffeth served as the moderator while Air Force officials described the details of an ongoing environmental study of the impacts of flying in Fort Worth.
Residents who live along the flight paths likely would experience louder noise and a 12% increase in the number of flights, according to forecasts in the environmental documents. The F-35s would fly in the same air space as the F-16s currently use, although they would fly at higher altitude.
Also, the F-35s would require 102 fewer jobs at the Fort Worth base. About 10,000 active duty military, Guardsmen, Reservists and civilians work at the base in varying capacities.
This story was originally published March 10, 2020 at 11:34 AM.
