F-35 First Quarter Flight Test Summary

Photo by Tom Reynolds

In the first four months of 2012, the F-22 Flight Test program completed 373 flights against a plan of 281 and achieved 2,810 test points. In March, the program completed 123 test flights totaling 223 flight hours, setting a monthly record for the most System Development and Demonstration, or SDD, flights and hours. Progressive checkout of the latest version of mission system software is also well under way. More than eighty-five percent of what is called Block 2A software code is currently being tested. Block 2A flight test is being conducted at Edwards AFB and will continue through this year. Since December 2006, test and production F-35s have been flown 2,066 times and accrued more than 3,000 cumulative flight hours.