Media Galleries : F-35 Lightning II

Various photos of F-35C Lightning II aircraft.

The previous F-35 Flight Test Update concluded with F-35A test aircraft AF-3 completing 500 flight hours on 18 March 2013, making AF-3 the second mission systems test Lightning II to reach this milestone. This fourteenth installment in the series of F-35 flight testing reviews presents a large variety of additional milestones for the F-35 test fleet from a monthly flight record for the F-35 CATBird in March to the completion of the initial carrier trials for the F-35C in November.

The F-35 drag chute system consists of a removable, or missionized pod. While Norway will likely operate with the pod installed full-time, other countries have the option of installing the pod as needed. The system is being designed much as a wing pylon so that the pod can be installed and removed with minimal time and effort.

Interest in designs for vertical takeoff and landing, or VTOL, fighter aircraft began in the 1960s at the height of the Cold War when NATO bases were seen as vulnerable to preemptive attacks. Such aircraft, secured in hardened shelters, could still take off and land from bases with damaged runways.

The previous F-35 Flight Test Update concluded with the first live guided missile launch from an F-35 on 30 October 2013. This first installment of 2014 and the thirteenth installment overall in the series of F-35 flight testing reviews presents a variety of subsequent weapon testing, including additional guided AIM-120 missile launches and guided GBU-32 drops for the F-35A, AIM-120 separation tests for the F-35C, and ten-weapon loads for the F-35A and F-35C. High angle of attack testing continued with the beginning of intentional departure tests of the F-35C at the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division test facility at NAS Patuxent River, Maryland. The F-35 System Development and Demonstration Program set flight duration records and surpassed 4,000 total test flights during this period as well.

three takeoffs and landings with hot pit refueling (ground refueling while the pilot remains in the cockpit with the engines running). The squadron began flying night missions in December 2013 and was flying them in March 2014 during the Code One visit.

The F-35 Flight Test Update in the Volume 28, Number 2 issue of Code One concluded with the 500th vertical landing of an F-35B on 3 August 2013. This twelfth installment in the series of flight test updates on the F-35 program covers the successful second phase of shipboard testing for the F-35B, the beginning of high angle of attack testing for the F-35C, plus other major achievements of the F-35 Integrated Test Force located at the Air Force Test Center at Edwards AFB, California, and at the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division test facility at NAS Patuxent River, Maryland.

More than 200 members of the F-35 Integrated Test Force from the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division at NAS Patuxent River, Maryland, deployed to the amphibious assault ship USS Wasp (LHD-1) in August 2013 for the second phase of developmental test sea trials, called DT-II, for the short takeoff/vertical landing variant of the Lightning II, the F-35B.

The F-35 Flight Test Update in the Volume 28, Number 1 issue of Code One concluded with the first aerial release of an AIM-120 AMRAAM from an F-35B on 26 March 2013. This eleventh installment in the series of flight test updates on the F-35 program covers the AIM-120 launch as well as other achievements of the F-35 Integrated Test Force located at Edwards AFB, California, and at NAS Patuxent River, Maryland.

Throughout all of his follow-on assignments since being a test pilot on the X-35, Tomassetti continued to be part of test events, working groups, and design reviews for the F-35.