Northrop Grumman on Dec. 19 delivered the center fuselage for the first Marine Corps variant of the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter and began work on the center fuselage for the Navy’s carrier version. A company release noted that it planned to ship the Marine Corps short takeoff and landing version to Lockheed Martin’s Fort Worth, Tex., facility on Jan. 8 to begin final assembly.
The Air Force kicked off one of its biggest exercises this week with the latest edition of Bamboo Eagle, featuring combined virtual and live training scenarios focused on test the command-and-control “nervous system” leaders need to operate on a complex joint battlefield spread over vast distances.



