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| BAE test pilot Peter Wilson made the longest hover during the ninety-fourth flight of F-35B BF-1. On the final vertical landing, Wilson spent more than five minutes in hover, with almost six minutes elapsing from entering the hover to touching down. The flight consisted of three other vertical landings, five short takeoffs, and one slow landing. |
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Over 5 minutes in hover...
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What's not to love about this plane! I'd like to know what's up with question about the F-35B melting the tarmac? Delay or not, this plane needs to get the USMC. The Harrier is proving itself again in Libya and the F-35B is the only replacement.
ReplyDeletewithout a doubt its needed....honestly, i'm not sure about the 'hot deck' issue. supposedly the MV-22 has the same issue but NAVAIR has worked a solution.
ReplyDeleteit won't be a show stopper either way and despite the critics...despite their hopes and prayers for this program to fail, it'll be an astonishing success.
No doubt a main even at any future air show!
ReplyDeleteB. Bolsøy
Oslo
But the real question is, will we hear about this feat on Ares? Any takers? ;-)
ReplyDelete-sferrin
I'm looking forward to when they start doing the vertical landing and short takeoff as part of the factory DD250 checkout here in Ft Worth. Should be entertaining for years.
ReplyDeleteI believe the "melting the deck" issue with respect to F-35B is vastly overstated. Presuming the F-35B will use a similar STOL technique for take-off and parallel vertical landing aboard ship as the Harrier, the deck will be exposed to hot exhaust (albeit hotter than what comes from the Harrier's RR Pegasus) for very short periods. Certainly not long enough for any sort of "blow torch" damage as critics would have one believe.
ReplyDeleteThere are other arguments one can make against the F-35B (even if I disagree with them), however, when I hear critics of the program pull out the "hot deck" canard, all that tells me is that they would be against the platform if it was as fast as a Blackbird and as cheap as a Cessna 172.