US Marine Corps test pilot Capt. Michael Kingen carried out the F-35B test fleet’s 500th vertical landing during a flight at the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division test facility at NAS Patuxent River, Maryland, on 3 August 2013. Kingen recorded the milestone in BF-01, the same short takeoff/vertical landing test aircraft used to make the first F-35B vertical landing in March 2010. That initial landing also came on a flight at Pax River. The 500th landing came on the 315th flight of BF-01.
