F-35B Completes First Vertical Landing

Posted 18 March 2010

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Photo by Damien Guarnieri

BAE test pilot Graham Tomlinson successfully completes the first vertical landing in an F-35B during Flight 42 of BF-1. The flight begins with an eighty-knot short takeoff followed by low-speed jet-borne flight to confirm performance. Tomlinson accelerates to about 150 knots before reducing speed to the point of hovering about 150 feet over the airfield at NAS Patuxent River, Maryland. After a minute of hovering, he commands the F-35 to descend vertically to a 96- by 96-foot square pad.

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