Seven US Airmen from the 33rd Fighter Wing at Eglin AFB, Florida, are currently at NAS Patuxent River, Maryland gaining first-hand experience maintaining the Marine Corps and Navy variants of the F-35 Lightning II. During their stay, the 33rd FW maintainers are learning how each branch of the service conducts aircraft maintenance. While the three F-35 variants are significantly different from each other, the Air Force F-35A, Marine Corps F-35B, and Navy F-35C are similar enough that maintainers do benefit from performing basic maintenance on all variants. Joint F-35 pilot and maintainer training will be conducted at Eglin. This second cadre of Air Force maintainers arrived at Pax River on 19 April 2011 and will be there through July.
