Magellan Aerospace announced today, it has completed the first F-35A Lightning II horizontal tail assembly at its Winnipeg manufacturing division. This achievement is a product of, and reflects investments made over a five year period, to develop state of the art facilities and processes necessary to perform the work. Magellan is under contract with BAE Systems to produce horizontal tail assemblies for the Conventional Take Off and Landing (CTOL) variant of F-35 and is expected to produce more than1,000 sets of the components for the program over a 20-year period.

"This achievement represents far more than the completion of our first assembly for the program," said Mr. James Butyniec, President and Chief Executive Officer of Magellan Aerospace. "It marks the culmination of Magellan's aggressive investment in facilities, equipment, and processes that has preceded today's event by more than five years. Magellan recognized that participation in the Joint Strike Fighter program would be strategic, creating opportunities supporting Magellan's core expertise and elevating the skills of our workforce to the next level of advanced manufacturing."

Magellan has achieved sales approaching $100M Cdn. on the F-35 program to date. Canadian companies like Magellan Aerospace have had unprecedented competitive opportunities in this sophisticated international program since the inception of Canada's participation in the Joint Strike Fighter program in 1997. This program milestone demonstrates that companies such as Magellan can be successful and competitive in the globalized aerospace supply chain that exists in the industry today.