Striking News

A day after Defense Secretary Robert Gates promised to cancel the Marine Corps F-35 Joint Strike Fighter short-take-off, vertical-landing variant in two years if problems with the program aren't resolved, Lockheed Martin released a bit of good news: Test aircraft BF-2 accomplished its first vertical landing yesterday, the first time that an aircraft other than BF-1 had done so.

John Kent, a Lockheed spokesman, said today that BF-2 performed one flight and four sorties for one hour, including a vertical landing at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, MD. The aircraft performed one conventional takeoff, three short takeoffs, three slow landings, two hovers and one vertical landing, and it performed similarly to BF-1, according to Kent.

BF-1's problems have largely been the reason the program has been behind, as it has been relied upon to expand the flight envelope before the other aircraft -- BF-2, BF-3 and BF-4 -- can follow suit.