The US Air Force’s Nellis AFB has awarded Curtiss-Wright a $24-million contract to provide Flight Test Instrumentation (FTI) equipment for the F-35 Technology Refresh 3 program.
Technology Refresh 3 is an ongoing modernization effort for the service’s hardware and software components on the F-35 Lightning II stealth multirole combat aircraft.
The program aims to improve the fighter’s memory, display, and computer processing capabilities and support future technology requirements.
Work for the contract is being conducted at Curtiss-Wright’s Teletronics Technology Corporation facility in Newtown, Pennsylvania.
“We are proud to have been selected by Nellis Air Force Base to provide our aerospace instrumentation technology for use on critical flight tests of the F-35 TR-3 program,” Curtiss-Wright CEO Lynn Bamford said.
“The receipt of this contract reflects our long-standing relationships and ongoing collaboration with the F-35 Joint Program Office and US Flight Test Range engineers and personnel, and demonstrates the trust and confidence that customers place in Curtiss-Wright’s advanced and reliable integrated high-speed flight test instrumentation systems.”
Distributed Flight Test Instrumentation
Curtiss-Wright has supported the US Flight Test Ranges for three years. Alongside Nellis AFB, the company works with the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division and the F-35 Joint Program Office to define and produce the Distributed FTI (DFTI) system.
DFTI advances evaluation and tests for the F-35 Technology Refresh 3-configured aircraft.
It leverages Curtiss-Wright’s proprietary FTI technology for the seamless transport of data associated with flight test acquisition, collation, recording, processing, and information.
Furthermore, DFTI’s networked architecture enables the distribution of instrumentation equipment to match expected metrics, resulting in increased flight test accuracy.
In January, the US Air Force conducted the first flight of an F-35 in the new Technology Refresh 3 configuration at Edwards AFB in California.