JSF Weapons Testing

Weapons testing is on the agenda for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter this year, according to test pilot Lt. Col. Matthew Kelly, the program's flight operations leader.

Tests on the ground will be followed by weapons-separation tests in the air, he told reporters today, noting the first drop is likely to happen in the second half of this year.

Kelly, who spoke at Naval Air Station, Patuxent River, MD, also said the program's main carrier-suitability test aircraft is slated to get the first redesigned tailhook later this year.

The program's next round of shipboard testing, which will involve the Marine Corps and Air Force variants, is slated for 2013. Sometime before that, the program will have to conduct the first nighttime flights of those variants, which should not be a problem, Kelly said.

Today's announcement by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta that the Pentagon is taking the F-35 short-takeoff-and-vertical-landing variant (STOVL) off probation would not significantly impact ongoing test activities here, he added, declining to comment on whether the program will achieve clearance for unmonitored flights of the STOVL variant by the end of the year.