A special ceremony will be held at the company's Samlesbury site, near Preston, on Tuesday to mark the hand-over of the first aft fuselage for the latest model of the F-35 Lightning II fighter jet.

Managing director Tom Fillingham, head of the programme for BAE, will be at the site to mark the handover of the parts to the project's lead manufacturer, US-based Lockheed Martin.

BAE is also responsible for supplying the horizontal and vertical tails, warfare systems, fuel systems and crew escape technology for the fighter jets, with much of the work carried out at Samlesbury.

The F-35 contract, previously known as the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), is worth £1.35bn to BAE.

Its operations are centered around its bases in the North West.

This will be the first aft fuselage, the back section of the jet, for the new Short Take Off and Vertical Landing (STOVL) variant of the F-35 which will be the world's first jet able to take off on a short runway and land from a vertical position.

The UK Ministry of Defence has placed an order for the new version of the F-35 to replace the BAE-built Harrier jump jet GR7 and GR9s used by the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy from the start of 2012.

Samlesbury, which employs 4,000 workers, is the hub of BAE's operations on the F-35, with work also being carried out on the jet at Warton, near Preston, Woodford in Greater Manchester and Brough, near Hull.

There is also a specialist team of BAE workers based at Lockheed Martin's US base in Fort Worth, Texas, which is regularly visited by staff from the workforce in Lancashire.