Interactive Electronic Training Manual Propels F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Maintenance to Higher Level

Advanced Technical Documentation System Helps Slash Cost and Time of Distributing Manuals

Challenge

When Lockheed Martin Aeronautics won the contract to design and build the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, a multipurpose aircraft, it also acquired a major logistical challenge. The F-35 would be built for all three armed forces branches, as well as a number of allied countries. However, while each country and armed forces branch would share many common features on the multipurpose fighter, each would also modify minor features to fulfill its unique mission and requirements. The resulting changes had to be accounted for within the supporting technical data, while also maintaining a significant level of reuse of common aircraft data.

The company had extensive experience working with paper manuals used to support previous aircraft. They were aware that distributing changes for these traditional manuals would be expensive and time consuming. Changes would have had to be faxed, e-mailed, or, more often than not, shipped to the respective bases for incorporation into existing paper manuals...