(Luft) Lockheed Martin F-22

[Nightwatch]

Lockheed to preserve F-22 tooling for future use

Lockheed Martin confirms the US Air Force has decided to retain tooling for the F-22 after the production line in Marietta, Georgia, shuts down as scheduled in 2012.

The decision means that USAF officials will be able to repair and modernise the service's aircraft, or manufacture new Raptors.

Lockheed says tools with "near-term needs" will be retained on site. Others will be preserved and stored in large, bar-coded steel containers commonly used by the shipping industry, which it says reduces "costs associated with conventional warehousing".

Air force officials were not immediately available to comment, but have previously said that a decision to preserve F-22 tooling would be intended to support a future service life-extension programme for the stealth fighter.

At the same time, the decision also implicitly preserves the option to restart production if future administrations decide that the USAF needs more than 186 F-22s.

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