The Air Force’s first two F-35A production aircraft, AF-6 and AF-7, have flown 98 percent of the flight training syllabus envisioned for the new stealth fighter, said Maj. Gen. C.D. Moore, F-35 program office deputy director, Wednesday. “We’re flying those aircraft like they’ll be flown in the training environment—actual syllabus-type sorties,” said Moore during an Air Force Association-sponsored Air Force Breakfast Program speech in Arlington, Va. These flight activities are occurring at Edwards AFB, Calif., ahead of a dry-run training course scheduled this fall at Eglin AFB, Fla., home of the initial joint F-35 schoolhouse, before the first regular F-35 pilot training course starts next January at Eglin. Since both AF-6 and AF-7 are loaded with Block 1 software, like the training aircraft slated for Eglin, service officials will use the data from these flights “to make a determination on airworthiness and flight dynamics,” said Moore. Edwards testers expect to wrap up the syllabus flights with a series of two-ship sorties, he said. AF-6 and AF-7 will eventually depart Edwards for Eglin, their long-term home, where they will serve among the 59 training aircraft planned for the Florida base.
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…