F-35 Lightning II Test Flight

[KeithnFW]

A few shots from this mornings test flight of Lockheed-Martin's F-35 JSF

The F-35 back taxis on runway 3-5


Lightning II and the Lockheed chase plane await clearance for take off




and the chase plane chases


And an hour later it returns to NASJRB Fort Worth

[Hogleg 44]

Great Job Keith. Excellent series!~

[KeithnFW]

thanks Paul

[Jobeye]

Nice pictures

[CaptainTom]

I was home and listened to it all on the radio. Interesting when ops called for a manaeuver and said "max g's 5.8", meaning the pilot was to keep the g forces lower than what might be done. I'm glad all went well, and that Keith was there to get some great shots as usual. It looks like they are shaking down this plane pretty quickly. When will we be seeing VTOL ???

[Roy]

Great job Keith! I'm glad your our man on the sceen and willing to share.

[tropicdiver]

Thanks for sharing. I know it's a while off, but can't wait to see it perform at air shows!

[a2rob]

Excellent, is the F-35 a experimental jet?

[KeithnFW]

Originally Posted by a2rob

Excellent, is the F-35 a experimental jet?

Not really. . . this is the first model to roll off the production line at Lockheed. This will be the fighter of the future, probably to replace the F-22 Raptor. Hopefully.

[KeithnFW]

Originally Posted by Roy

Great job Keith! I'm glad your our man on the sceen and willing to share.

Thanks Roy. . .

[CaptainTom]

A 13 minute long video on the airplane can be found HERE. go to 2007 overview.

[mjdmike]

Awesome.

[a2rob]

Kewl, I just read that the are grounding some older model Strike Eagles due to irreplaceble structure damage. They were speaking of hight number, in the hundreds.

[jdwme]

Originally Posted by a2rob

Kewl, I just read that the are grounding some older model Strike Eagles due to irreplaceble structure damage. They were speaking of hight number, in the hundreds.

I wonder if one of them was the one on history channel that flew with one wing

On a side note, there was a tv special a couple years ago that documented the design and testing of the f-35 and another plane in the contest for the contract, pretty interesting designs on both jets.

[MikeyG1965]

Keith...were these flying around on Wednesday afternoon? I was driving west on I-30 (by Riglea Mall) and saw a couple of jets flying around that looked cool.