The F-35 may be a lot of dubious things (overpriced, underused, occasionally broken) — but it sure is beautiful. Enjoy the eye candy American tax dollars bought in all its splendour — the F-35 just took its first flight into darkness.
The inaugural evening jaunt was pretty elementary:
The first night flight in the history of the Lockheed Martin F-35 Program was completed Wednesday at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. Piloted by Lockheed Martin Test Pilot Mark Ward, AF-6, an F-35A conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL) variant, launched at 5:05 p.m. PST and landed after sunset at 6:22 p.m. The mission consisted of a series of straight in approaches in twilight and darkness.
But the F-35, despite being all over military headlines, is still pretty much a trillion dollar beta product. So when it manages to do something that seems simple, that’s an accomplishment. Next stop? Maybe shooting a missile at someone we don’t like, someday.
TSH
Friday, January 20, 2012 at 12:15 PMThis plane will never see combat. There I said it.
We’d better get some sweet consumer tech trickling down from this program…
MotorMouth
Friday, January 20, 2012 at 6:23 PMI’m sure everyone said the same thing about the F-16, too.
Sean
Friday, January 20, 2012 at 7:01 PMNope. They all said it would shooting down ruskies and other assorted commies before you knew it.
attila
Friday, January 20, 2012 at 12:15 PMUnderused? Its still in development, how much can it be used?
JonBOY
Friday, January 20, 2012 at 2:49 PMIt’s funny that these jets are carving up the skies in Battlefield 3, yet in reality they’re not even out of development yet, let alone seeing active service!
AAron
Friday, January 20, 2012 at 4:04 PMThe sunset is beautiful, the plane isn’t. Much prefer the F22. Better still F14. F35 looks too upright, the depth of the fuselage seems too deep. I prefer the older shapes of jets where the top of the wing carries flat over the fuselage and the canopy pokes up
James Mac
Saturday, January 21, 2012 at 10:16 PMSee… I think the F/A-18 is far better looking.
monkeymind
Friday, January 20, 2012 at 7:55 PMExpensive crap that will never be used. By the time it is ready drones will fill its role