Nichols Martin
Lockheed Martin has opened a facility in Pinellas Park, Florida, to manufacture canopies and bulkheads for F-35 fighter jets.
The company said Monday it will commence operations at the manufacturing facility in mid-May and aims to create more than 80 new jobs there through mid-2019.
Nearly 270 employees currently work at Lockheed’s Pinellas Park site, which the company expanded to add 65,500 square feet of office and production space.
The aerospace contractor is scheduled to begin shipping parts from the new facility to the main F-35 production hub located in Fort Worth, Texas, in mid-summer.
Lockheed added it expects the Pinellas facility to assemble more than 200 components for the fighter aircraft program during 2018.
