4th CTOL F35 Made First Flight Saturday
The first Lockheed Martin F-35B Lightning II short
takeoff/vertical landing (STOVL) stealth fighter arrived Sunday at
Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland, where it will conduct
its first hovers and vertical landings. The ferry flight initiates
a sequence of F-35 arrivals at Patuxent River this year and
next.
F-35B STOVL
Piloted by Lockheed Martin F-35 Chief Test Pilot Jon Beesley,
the F-35B flew from Fort Worth, Texas, to Patuxent River by way of
Dobbins Air Force Base in Georgia. Beesley landed on the Patuxent
runway Sunday at 1246 EST.
"We have high confidence in the capabilities of this aircraft,
and we fully expect that it will meet or exceed the expectations of
our customers," said Dan Crowley, Lockheed Martin executive vice
president and F-35 program general manager. "At Patuxent River,
this aircraft will continue the process of validating our
revolutionary STOVL propulsion system through a series of short
takeoffs, hovers and vertical landings."
The aircraft will be supported at Patuxent River by the F-35
Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS) and will be monitored
by the Lockheed Martin F-35 Sustainment Operations Center in Fort
Worth. Known as BF-1, the aircraft is the first F-35 to be
sustained by ALIS - the worldwide support system that will monitor
the prognostics and health of F-35s around the globe to ensure
mission readiness.
The F-35B will replace U.S. Marine
Corps AV-8B STOVL fighters, F/A-18 strike fighters and EA-6B
electronic attack aircraft. The United Kingdom's Royal Air Force
and Royal Navy and the Italian Air Force and Navy will also employ
the F-35B.
In a related story, the first optimized conventional takeoff and
landing (CTOL) F-35 Lightning II fighter made its inaugural flight
on Saturday, Nov. 14, the fourth F-35 to begin flight
operations.
Piloted by Lockheed Martin test pilot David "Doc" Nelson, the
F-35A, called AF-1, left Lockheed Martin's Fort Worth plant and
flew to 20,000 feet and Mach 0.6. Nelson raised and lowered the
landing gear, performed 360-degree rolls and lifted the nose to 20
degrees angle of attack during an 89-minute flight. AF-1 was built
on the same production line as the 31 Low Rate Initial Production
aircraft now in assembly. The aircraft incorporates many
evolutionary improvements and updates derived from the test program
of AA-1, the first F-35. AF-1 joins two F-35B short
takeoff/vertical landing variants currently in flight test.
"The initial flight of the first optimized CTOL aircraft
represents a significant achievement for the program and sets the
stage for what's promising to be a successful flight test program,"
said Maj. Gen. C.D. Moore, deputy program executive officer for the
Joint Strike Fighter Program Office. "We are excited to see AF-1
taking flight, as it portends a bright CTOL future for the USAF and
the partner nations. The hard work on the production line and the
flight line has paid off, and the workers deserve a hearty
congratulations."
AF-1
Doug Pearson, Lockheed Martin vice president for F-35 test and
verification, said, "AF-1 is one of the most important aircraft in
our test fleet because knowledge gained from its use expanding the
flight envelope will benefit the other two variants, and every F-35
ever built. AF-1 is also the first F-35 to roll off our moving
assembly line, having achieved the maximum production speed of 50
inches per hour during a trial high-speed assembly sequence. The
moving assembly line, designed to improve production quality and
speed, is the first ever for a modern fighter."