Terma to host F-35 centered book signing Thursday

WARNER ROBINS, Ga. — A former Lockheed Martin vice-president has a story to share on F-35s.

On Aug. 10, from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. at the Museum of Aviation, Tom Burbage, former executive vice-president of Lockheed Martin and general manager of the F-35 Joint Strike Program, will be having a book signing for his book “F-35: The Inside Story of the Lightning II”.

The story was co-authored with Betsy Clark, Adrian Pitman and David Poyer who have all been in the military-industrial complex at one point or another.

Burbage comes from a Navy family; him and his father both having been naval pilots. He left active duty after 11 years of service and began his work at Lockheed Martin, at the time called Lockheed. In the end, he rose to be the general manager for the F-22 as well as the F-35.

Terma is also hosting another book signing on Aug. 9, but that is only open to their employees.

When asked why Terma decided to hold the book signing, Tom Pruitt, the senior director of Terma’s Human Resources replied, “Tom is our chairman of the board for our U.S. Board of Directors for Terma Inc… I felt like it was something we should do once we learned the book was coming out, and that there would be some opportunity to get [Burbage] in front of people in the Warner Robins community”.

But what is the book itself about? For that, some context should be given.

“The F-35 is a very unique program in the history of defense… it was much different than earlier programs because it involved all three of the U.S. Services: the Marines, the Air Force and the Navy, and the U.S. invited eight other countries to participate in the development of the program,” said Burbage.

The book goes into detail about the challenges of developing the controversial aircraft from a technical standpoint like how difficult it was making a VSTAL aircraft and its F-35B and F-35C versions. But the book has a much greater focus on the human side of the story.

“I got involved with a couple of other people in writing the book, I was just kind of helping a little bit. But then it became apparent that there was a whole lot more to tell about the human side of the journey… this was about, a lot of stories about the people that were actually involved, the test pilots, the government and the industry leaders, the international partners,” said Burbage explaining the book.

Going with this, the work features over 100 interviews from key people in the program, an example Burbage gave was of test pilot Jeff Knowles, the second person pilot to fly the F-35, whose flight went very wrong and almost lost his airplane.

“[The book’s] got a couple of applications: general aviation enthusiasts that like to read stories about airplanes and airplane development would find it interesting, I think. There’s an educational thread, where people can use almost as a case study for managing really complex programs and there’s, you know, there’s the interest by it from the technical perspective,” said Burbage.

If someone is interested in buying or learning more about the book or its authors, visit the book’s website, f35insidestory.shop.

HHJ News