On Monday, April 29, an Air Force F-35A performs a weapons separation test with a 4G load factor.

From the post by Loren Thompson:

Now comes additional praise from the nation’s top military officer, Joint Chiefs Chairman General Martin Dempsey. A self-described “ground-pounder” (soldier), Dempsey told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee last week that he was “open-minded” on the fate of the F-35 until he talked to a Marine officer running one of the first operational squadrons of F-35s at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. Dempsey said that conversation about the plane’s performance turned him into an advocate. And then he put his finger on what may be the most important reason for buying the F-35: “We haven’t been attacked from the air since April 15, 1953, and I’m not going to be the chairman on whose watch… that’s reversed.”

Click here to read the entire article, and visit F35.com for more information on the Joint Strike Fighter Program.

Marine Corps test pilot Maj. C.R. Clift conducted the flight April 2 to gather data on the helmet and lighting conditions for night time operations. The test was one of a series of events being conducted to prepare for the second of three scheduled at-sea test periods during the development program. The first F-35 ship trials occurred in 2011, when two F-35Bs performed 72 vertical landings and takeoffs aboard the USS WASP, a large-deck amphibious ship.

“The completion of this test event demonstrates the F-35B is one step closer to delivering a critical capability to the U.S. Marine Corps and F-35B partners in the United Kingdom and Italy” said Lt. Gen. Chris Bogdan, F-35 Program Executive Officer. “There is plenty of work to be done and progress to be made, but we’re on a solid path forward.”

Video of the landing:

Check out the video:

FORT WORTH, Texas, March 19, 2013 – Three Lockheed Martin F-35A conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL) aircraft were officially welcomed by the U.S. Air Force Warfare Center at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev. during a commemorative ceremony today. The jets are assigned to the 422nd Test and Evaluation Squadron of the 53rd Test and Evaluation Group.

“For more than 50 years, it’s been our privilege to support the Air Force mission, and we’re honored to deliver the first three F-35A CTOL aircraft to Air Force Warfare Center,” said Orlando Carvalho, executive vice president of Lockheed Martin Aeronautics. “The work done by the Nellis team will forge the F-35 into the fighter of the future and test it to its limits. Their skilled pilots and maintainers will take the F-35’s performance to new heights and define the tactics the F-35 will one day use to defend freedom around the world.”

The first three operational-coded 5th Generation F-35A CTOL fighters at Nellis mark the beginning of operational testing and evaluation at the base. To date, 24 CTOL aircraft have been delivered to the Air Force and 58 aircraft to the Department of Defense.

The 422nd TES is a composite squadron that executes Operational Test & Evaluation for the F-35. The squadron conducts tactics development, foreign materiel exploitation, and special access programs to optimize system combat capability. By 2019, a total of 12 F-35As will be assigned to the base for testing and evaluation.

Read the Nellis AFB story from the event.

In a letter to the editor of Time, a truncated version of which appears printed in this week’s issue, Carvalho expresses his disappointment that the author of the piece did not contact Lockheed Martin for comment, and corrected some of the misrepresentations contained in the article.

Carvalho’s full letter, made available by Lockheed Martin:

I was disappointed to read Mark Thompson’s Feb. 25 article, “The Most Expensive Weapon Ever Built”, because Lockheed Martin was not contacted in the course of writing this story. As the organization responsible for designing, testing and building this aircraft, we are the best “experts” to provide insight into the program’s challenges and successes.

If we had been contacted, then Mr. Thompson would have undoubtedly provided Time readers with an accurate and unbiased portrayal of the F-35 program, something I hope you agree they deserve.

With correct information, Time readers would know that the F-35 has conducted weapons release testing on multiple occasions, and that the helmet Mr. Thompson claims to be “plagued with problems” actually provides pilots with perspective and situational awareness unavailable with any other aircraft in operation today. The helmet has been used by pilots on more than 4,000 F-35 flights to date.

Mr. Thompson’s story said that the software needed to go to war “remains on the drawing board”, when in fact, more than 80 percent of all F-35 software is flying, 10 percent is in laboratory testing and only the final ten percent has yet to be developed.

We also could have prevented Mr. Thompson from inaccurately reporting that the Navy’s version of the F-35 will require carriers to sail closer to the enemy, when in fact, the F-35 will enhance the Navy’s combat radius by 40 percent over the legacy aircraft it’s replacing. And we would have shared that the cost of the F-35 is decreasing; in fact, since the first production jet was delivered in 2011, the cost per unit has been cut in half.

We agree that the F-35 program has encountered significant challenges, but Mr. Thompson’s story failed to acknowledge that we have worked with our partners to address each one.

We are proud of the enormous accomplishments of the men and women who work on and support this program every day. The F-35 is the most advanced weapon system in our history and will provide our warfighters with a game-changing advantage in the face of an increasingly dangerous world. The readers of Time magazine deserve to hear the whole story and we would be happy to help you tell it. I would like to personally extend Mr. Thompson an invitation to visit our Fort Worth, Texas facility, where we build the F-35 and he can speak candidly with our employees who know the program better than anyone.

Following the recent grounding of the F-35B, the U.S. Marine Corps variant of the Joint Strike Fighter, there has been a lot of criticism of the program. But is cutting or scaling back the program in response to setbacks the best solution? With a fair and accurate assessment of the program and the proposed solutions to some of the problems it faces, the American Security Project blog has a great post from BGen. Stephen A. Cheney USMC (Ret.).

According to a his post in their Flashpoint Blog:

The JSF program is the perfect example of the need for a strategic approach to defense acquisitions. High-tech and super stealthy, the F-35 is designed to replace a wide range of aircraft, making it the plane of the future for the Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps.

The F-35 has had schedule delays and cost overruns, for which there are a number of causes. Chief among them is concurrency, the practice of moving forward with production before development and testing is complete. As a result, new planes may roll off the assembly line already in need of significant retrofitting – an unintended consequence of the plan to field the aircraft quickly and efficiently.

For many, the solution to the F-35’s rising costs and technical setbacks is to cut back or even cancel the program. This is the kind of knee-jerk reaction we must avoid. We must weigh consequences, costs, and alternative solutions, all in the light of strategic requirements rather than jumping to conclusions.

Buying fewer F-35s is a tempting solution to the affordability. But reducing the buy creates problems too. Buying fewer aircraft means each one costs more. And the more each plane costs, the more risky it becomes to use them.

Click here for the full article, and visit F35.com for more information on the Joint Strike Fighter Program.

Photo by Lockheed Martin

From the Eglin Air Force Base press release: Following an independent evaluation of Eglin’s capability to conduct F-35A Lightning II pilot training, Air Education and Training Command announced today the 33rd Fighter Wing can do so, starting in January.

“The preliminary results provided by the Joint Operational Test Team show the F-35A aircraft and its pilot training and sustainment systems, are robust enough to conduct the planned pilot transition and instructor upgrade courses,” said Air Education and Training Command commander, Gen. Edward A. Rice Jr.

AETC will initiate syllabus training in order to meet Air Force-defined requirements. A deliberate process will be used that continues to validate the training system’s effectiveness through advancing training blocks as they are made available by the military’s F-35 Program Office and Lockheed Martin.

The Operational Utility Evaluation, which started Sept. 10 and was slated to last 65 days, encompassed intensive classroom and simulator training along with six flights, for four primary and two backup upgrading student pilots.

With favorable conditions to include “good weather, an accomplished maintenance team and talented instructors to train the pilots, the OUE process lasted only 46 training days,” said Col. Andrew Toth, 33rd Fighter Wing commander, an F-35A instructor pilot who spearheads the joint and international F-35 efforts at Eglin.

“You are here making a lasting impression on how the team will execute F-35 both flying and maintenance training over the next 50 years,” he said during conversations to wing members following the successful OUE.

During the OUE, experienced pilots transitioned from the F-16 and A-10 aircraft, to the world’s first multi-role stealth fighter. Two pilots, Maj. John Wilson and Maj. Matthew Johnston were from Eglin’s 58th Fighter Squadron and two, Lt. Col. Brian O’Neill and Maj. Joseph Scholtz and were from operational test units at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., and Nellis Air Force Base, Nev.

“Their performances were superb… that smile each student had after landing his first flight showed they were well prepared and the jet was easy to fly just as I had experienced with my first flight,” said Lt. Col. Lee Kloos, 58th Fighter Squadron commander, who is charged with overseeing the squadron’s daily flying operations. He is also the first non-developmental test pilot to fly the F-35.

The OUE was initiated by the Joint Strike Fighter Program Executive Officer based in Wash. D.C. and was intended to best arm the AETC commander with comprehensive data from an independent source so Rice could decide how to proceed with future F-35A pilot training at Eglin.

“The OUE showed the men and women at Eglin are ready,” said Rice. “I’m very proud of both those in uniform and the contracted support who put in years of hard work. The culmination of those labors was successfully demonstrating the Integrated Training Center can conduct safe and effective flying operations in addition to academic training.”

Training is slated to begin Jan. 7 with four 58th Fighter Squadron pilots and two operational test pilots.

The focus of the OUE evaluation team was on the ability to conduct pilot training but leadership agree they couldn’t do it without their maintainers.

“The maintainers are the backbone of the flight operations. Had they not performed the way they did, we could not have finished the OUE about two weeks ahead of schedule,” said Toth pointing to his skilled team in the 58th Aircraft Maintenance Unit and Lockheed Martin contracted logistics support.

With RFT declared, the wing’s integrated training center gets closer to running at full capacity of 100 military pilot students a year along with the 2,100 maintenance students.

“We look forward to 2013 as we integrate the Navy’s ‘Grim Reapers’ and F-35C into our flying operations along with our international partners, the Dutch and UK. The pace of operations will not slow as we continue to grow and we are ready for the new challenges next year will bring to wing personnel and it’s F-35 Integrated Training Center.”

Approximately 36 Air Force pilots are expected to go through the training program next year.

“The team at Eglin went through a rigorous process to lead the way for F-35A training. We look forward to starting off the new year with more history in the making as they put the JSF Integrated Training Center to task to provide a world class training program,” said Rice.