Video: F-35 Completes First Vertical Landing at Sea

Flying Magazine | The World’s Most Widely Read Aviation Magazine

Photo courtesy of Lockheed Martin

A U.S. Marine Corps F-35B completed its first shipboard vertical landing on Tuesday, touching down on the deck of the USS Wasp in the Atlantic during preliminary phases of ship suitability testing.

The Joint Strike Fighter will continue shipboard testing during the next two weeks, striving to complete a planned 67 landings on the Wasp during that time frame.

The achievement for the F-35B, the short takeoff/vertical landing variant of the fighter, comes after a series of delays and expense increases for the Joint Strike Fighter, which has been under production for 10 years.

The F-35B variant in particular has experienced a variety of development and testing problems, prompting former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in January to put the program on a two-year probation.

The Pentagon, however, is hailing Tuesday’s landing as a success and highlighting the fact that the test was delivered on schedule after being scheduled in the Spring of this year.

View video of the landing below.

View a photo gallery of the landing.

Comments (2) Post a comment

All Comments

Submitted by iused2fly on October 06, 2011.

Am I crazy or is the timing of this announcement somewhat questionable, given the well-known delays, budget overruns and Obogs issue associated with the F-35 program? Mere days after the latest waves of bad press about the F-35's costs, Lockheed Martin achieves a major program milestone—seemingly out of nowhere?

Lockheed Martin seems to be giving the U.K., Italy, Canada, the Netherlands, Australia, Norway and Denmark (the countries that have contributed to this programs along with the US) just enough comfort that they don't pull out and buy proven technology like Super Hornets, Rafales or EuroFlighter Typhoons.

One thing is for sure: the political leaders who committed to this plane some ten years ago have their junk stuck out a long way on this deal. Despite today's announcement some world leaders may be forced to bolt from the F-35 program, if only to placate their nervous opposition parties and voters.

Douglas M
Surrey, BC Canada

67%
Good comment?
yes
no

Submitted by Danny Wallace on October 07, 2011.

I guess I’m responding to a quest ion with a question here but, what are we looking for; is it new technology or older proven technology? It takes time to learn how to use new materials, perfect new techniques in manufacturing, and how we are to use our new discoveries. Of course you would think that before any manufacturing was started all the planning would have worked out any problem issues. History shows us this is not always the case as the equipment we now build is more technically advanced than yesterday’s aircraft, cars, or ships. Cost and time over runs IMO are the result of overlooking the small issues that grow into larger issues as the requirement for perfection become more and more apparent. A flawed killing machine kills the wrong people, the operators. A good question to argue is; are we over complicating our equipment; Or are these hi-tech fighters and new age technology needed to stay ahead. Older platforms may work for us now, but will they work for us tomorrow? There are some great examples out there that would give credibility to the “update the present airframe” mindset.