Lockheed Martin F-35 Program Flight Test Update

Courtesy Lockheed Martin

Overall, the F-35 program remains ahead of the overall goals for test flights and test points year-to-date. Through May 31, the program accomplished 378 flights versus a plan of 297 and accomplished 3,342 test points against a plan of 2,217.

Several flight test and production key milestones were accomplished since the last report:

• The F-35B short takeoff /vertical landing (STOVL) jet BF-1 performed the 100th vertical landing for the test program on May 12. For 2011, 106 vertical landings have been performed.
• The F-35A conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL) jet AF-1 flew to Mach 1.53, the fastest-to-date speed of the existing aircraft fleet. AF-7 completed the longest test mission to date lasting 4.1 hours.
• During the month of May, all three variants of the F-35 flew a combined total of 94 System Development and Demonstration (SDD) flights, the most achieved in a single month in program history.
• The F-35 program flew the most flights ever recorded on one day (May 25) when a combined total of 10 flights (includes SDD and LRIP) were completed at all three of its flight test locations at Edwards Air Force Base (EAFB), Calif.; Fort Worth, Texas; and Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md. (PAX).
• The U.S. Air Force accepted into its fleet, the second of a planned 1,763 production-model F-35 Lightning II stealth fighters when AF-6 was delivered to EAFB on May 13. AF-6 was the second aircraft in Low Rate Initial Production (LRIP) lot one contractually delivered.
• One of the first two F-35A production aircraft that will be delivered to Eglin AFB, Fla., accomplished its first flight on May 13. Known as AF-9, the aircraft will be delivered to Eglin for pilot and maintainer training later this year. This jet is the second aircraft to fly from LRIP lot two.
• Two F-35C carrier variant (CV) aircraft, known as CF-2 and CF-3, were delivered to the F-35 test fleet at PAX. CF-2 was delivered May 16 and CF-3 delivered June 2.
• CF-2 successfully completed the first F-35 public fly by at the Andrews AFB, Md., Joint Services Open House Air Show during the opening ceremony for the event May 21.

The following statistics reflect the cumulative flight test activity totals for 2011:

• F-35A CTOL jets have flown 183 times.
• F-35B STOVL aircraft have completed 166 flights.
• F-35C CV jets have flown 62 times.
• From the start of flight testing in December 2006 through June 13, 2011, F-35s flew 971 times, including the production-model acceptance flights and AA-1.

The F-35 Lightning II is a 5th Generation fighter, combining advanced stealth with fighter speed and agility, fully fused sensor information, network-enabled operations and advanced sustainment. Lockheed Martin is developing the F-35 with its principal industrial partners, Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems.

Lockheed delivers first production F-35 to US Air Force

By Stephen Trimble

Lockheed Martin has delivered the first production F-35 Lightning II to the US military to reach a long-delayed milestone, but there remains no firm timetable for inducting the new aircraft into operational service.
US Air Force officials formally accepted series-production model AF-7 at Lockheed's final assembly plant in Fort Worth, Texas, on 5 May. The aircraft was then flown to Edwards AFB, California, to complete an airframe-specific flight test programme.

The hand-over marks the delivery of the first production jet nearly 10 years after Lockheed won the contract to deliver 1,763 F-35As to the US Air Force, plus a total of 640 F-35Bs and F-35Cs for the Marine Corps and navy, respectively.

"Today we begin to fulfil the vision of our government and international customers," said Larry Lawson, Lockheed's F-35 programme manager.

The milestone has been delayed several years from the original timetable set after contract award in 2001, with a costly redesign adopted in 2004 and two major schedule delays announced since last February.
Until earlier this year, the air force had planned to stand-up the first operational F-35 squadron by 2016. The latest schedule, however, delays the end of developmental testing to the end of 2016, forcing the in-service date for the F-35A into at least 2017 or 2018. But the precise date had not yet been determined by the air force as of late April.

Despite the programme's cost and schedule setbacks, the F-35's leadership team points to a new wave of progress in manufacturing and testing.

Although the last of 13 flight test aircraft remains in final assembly, eight production-model jets from the first two lots of low-rate initial production (LRIP) have rolled out of the assembly line.

But the earliest production aircraft proved more costly than the government estimated, with Lockheed's bills running as high as 15% over budget for the first three lots of LRIP.