F-35C Makes First Flight

Only five years late, an F-35C Navy version of the Joint Strike Fighter made its inaugural flight last month.

In Fort Worth, where it was built, a Lockheed Martin and U.S. Navy team achieved a milestone for the Lightning II aircraft carrier variant jet fighter/bomber. The Lightning II, a larger winged F-35 aircraft variant developed to support the Navy’s long-range, stealth striking operations, took off from Naval Air Station Fort Worth Joint Reserve Base and successfully completed its first flight.

Officials said in a release the next-generation fighter aircraft opens a “new chapter in naval aviation.”

The flight from the Fort Worth Joint Reserve Base lasted 57 minutes marking a milestone for the aircraft variant F-35 program.

"As a long-range, stealthy, carrier-based aircraft, the F-35C will provide naval aviators a fifth-generation fighter with the most advanced technology possible to perform our nation’s missions,” Vice Adm. Thomas Kilcline, Naval Air Forces commander, said in a statement.

The F-35C is expected to continue developmental flight testing in the summer. However, Congress isn’t happy with the gigantic cost overruns of the F-35 program, which has pushed estimated cost of the aircraft to $155 million each.

There are two other version, an Air Force F-35A and the Marines’ F-35B, which is a short take-off, vertical landing version which has been beset by numerous technical difficulties. The Navy’s version has longer wings for slow flight, a tail hook and beefed up mechanicals to take the pounding of landing on a carrier deck.