Lockheed: F-35 Program Completes Development Phase Written 23 April 2018

Aviation International News reported that Lockheed Martin Vice President and F-35 Program General Manager Greg Ulmer declared that its F-35 program has completed the “most comprehensive flight-test program in aviation history.” The final flight of the fighter’s System Development and Demonstration (SDD) phase was take from Naval Air Station Patuxent River “on April 11, when F-35C CF-02 collected data on loads that are generated by external carriage of some weapons.” According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the SDD phase cost more than $60 billion. F-35 Program Executive Officer Vice Adm. Mat Winter summarized, “Since the first flight of AA-1 in 2006, the developmental flight-test program has operated for more than 11 years mishap-free, conducting more than 9,200 sorties, accumulating over 17,000 flight hours, and executing more than 65,000 test points to verify the design, durability, software, sensors, weapons capability, and performance for all three F-35 variants.” The SDD will “not be formally completed” until the Pentagon performs an Operation Test and Evaluation (OT&E) and approves full-rate production of the aircraft.
More Info (Aviation International News)