First Production F-35B Flown

Posted 25 October 2011

TAGS:

Photo by Randy Crites

The first production F-35B Lightning II short takeoff/vertical landing multirole fighter for the US Marine Corps was flown for the first time on 25 October 2011 at the Lockheed Martin facility in Fort Worth, Texas. Lockheed Martin test pilot Bill Gigliotti put the aircraft (Navy bureau number 168057) through a series of functional checks during the nearly one hour sortie. This aircraft will be delivered to the F-35 Integrated Training Center at Eglin AFB, Florida, by the end of 2011.

Comments

U-2 Articles
U-2 News
U-2 Video
U-2 Photos

View All Articles

U-2 Anniversary
7/16/2015
For sixty years, the U-2 Dragon Lady has been America's eyes, ears, and nose in the sky. Code One looks back at the U-2 program on the anniversary of its first flight.

U-2 Pilot Describes Earliest Missions
4/30/2015
Vito’s mission took him directly over Moscow and its extensive network of newly built air defenses, which ringed the city in three concentric circles at twenty, forty, and sixty miles from the city center.

Today's U-2 Fleet
9/14/2014
The end of U-2 production in 1989 marked the beginning of a host of evolutionary upgrades.

U-2 Factoids
9/13/2014
Facts, figures, and other essential details about the U-2 Dragon Lady.

Interview With U-2 Stats Keeper
9/12/2014
Reliability maintainability, and supportability lead engineer, tracks statistics for the U-2 program.

U-2 Life Support In Palmdale
9/8/2014
Mark Schroeder has had the responsibility of prepping, maintaining, testing, and inspecting survival equipment for U-2 missions.

U-2 Early History
2/15/2002
The U-2 reconnaissance aircraft, though designed and developed in great secrecy in the 1950s, has somehow never fully emerged from the shadows even though it has outlasted one successor, the SR-71 Blackbird.

View All News