April Fools’ Prank Hits Aerospace World

Norway is one of the “partner nations” for Lockheed Martin’s multinational Joint Strike Fighter development and production program.

Last November, Norway formally announced that it had selected the F-35 Lightning II to replace its aging F-16 fleet and to fulfill Norway’s future air-combat capability requirements.

Norway plans to acquire 48 F-35s, and the first F-35s would be delivered in 2016.

Norway’s participation in the JSF program will also bring substantial opportunities for Norwegian industry.

It was thus a shock to, barely four months later, read the following headline in the Norwegian newspaper “Klassekampen”

Oslo (N)- “Norway withdraws from the JSF program. The Norwegian government, on Friday, will inform Parliament the reasons why the decision for the purchase of the Joint Strike Fighter is reversed.”

Klassekampen (“The Class Struggle”), is a Norwegian daily newspaper, founded in 1969, with a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist platform, according to Wikipedia.

Apparently, other newspapers also picked up this “dramatic” news.

However, it soon became clear that even serious global aerospace business is not immune from April Fools’ pranks.

Back to the real world: There are several new developments in the military aircraft development and procurement arena.

More on such serious news soon.