Aeronautical Systems Center officials at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, on Tuesday issued the military flight release that will allow the F-35A strike fighter to begin initial operations at Eglin AFB, Fla., according to a Wright-Patt release. “The Air Force, [F-35] program office, and other stakeholders have painstakingly followed established risk-acceptance and -mitigation processes to ensure the F-35A is ready,” said Gen. Donald Hoffman, head of Air Force Materiel Command that oversees ASC. Hoffman added, “This is an important step for the F-35A.” Eglin is the site of the initial joint F-35 schoolhouse. With the clearance, qualified pilots will be able to conduct “unmonitored flights” with F-35As for purposes like increasing pilot and maintainer familiarity with the aircraft and exercising the logistics infrastructure, states the release. These initial F-35A flights “will be limited, scripted, [and] conducted within the restrictions and stipulations of the MFR,” it states. (See also Tentative Steps at Eglin.)
While U.S. defense officials have spent much of the past decade warning that China is the nation’s pacing threat and its People’s Liberation Army represents an urgent threat in the Indo-Pacific, several defense researchers are skeptical that the PLA has the human capital, the structural ability, or the political appetite…