I know a little about this...

I've been in the Lockheed plant in Fort Worth where these are built along with other jets (huge open plant over a mile long). The Navy Carrier variant will be built in the next couple of years. The Marine and Navy versions will be based out of Pax River for all of the flight and operations testing prior to full deployment years down the road. I've already been to testing on the first production version of the Air Force and Marine versions that will be in museums once testing is completed. I've been in group photos in front of both aircraft, but never have seen copies of the pictures. Hopefully I'll get those someday and frame them.

Lockheed gets $441.9M F-35 contract addition

Navy awards Lockheed Martin $441.9 million contract addition for more F-35s

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Pentagon said Thursday it has awarded Lockheed Martin Corp. a $441.9 million addition to a contract for F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jets.

The contract modification covers seven more F-35s for the Air Force, seven for the Marine Corps, two for the United Kingdom and one for Netherlands. It also includes equipment such as simulators, weapons and maintenance trainers and hardware and software.

The Pentagon eventually expects to buy up to 2,450 of the stealth fighter jets, with several overseas nations buying several hundred more.

Work will be performed in Florida, Texas, California and multiple other locations. It is expected to be completed in December 2011.

Shares of Bethesda, Md.-based Lockheed fell $1.12 to close earlier at $79.52.