General Dynamics Mission Systems Celebrates Milestone with 500th F-35 Radome Delivery

General Dynamics Mission Systems declared today that it has successfully delivered the 500th broadband nose radome to Lockheed Martin for placement on U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, and foreign military F-35 aircraft. These radomes offer essential protection to the aircraft’s Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar while minimizing radio frequency (RF) disruption and decreasing the aircraft’s vulnerability to enemy radar detection. The radomes were initially co-developed by General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin, with General Dynamics spearheading the RF design and Lockheed Martin overseeing the overall development initiative.

“This achievement is a remarkable representation of our Marion team’s 75-year dedication to efficiently design, manufacture, and test over 65,000 radomes that fulfill the requirements of more than 50 distinct aircraft types,” stated Carlo Zaffanella, vice president and general manager at General Dynamics Mission Systems. “Our objective at General Dynamics is to create wideband radomes that shield aircraft and radar systems as they advance, facilitating enhanced capabilities with minimal disruption.”

General Dynamics has created and fabricated in excess of 1,700 sophisticated wideband nose radomes specifically tailored to support AESA radars on U.S. and allied military aircraft, including the F-15, F-16, F/A-18, and F-35 platforms. Wideband radomes deliver superior performance compared to traditional radomes by reducing impact on RF functionality across the significantly wider AESA frequency ranges. This enhancement grants F-35 pilots a broader operating frequency spectrum and ensures optimal performance in target detection, tracking, and mapping.