F-35B makes landing on specially designed ship
Aboard the USS America – The surf was high where the amphibious assault ship America sailed off the coast of San Diego — high enough to make the flight deck pitch and roll and set the conditions for a few minutes of crisis when an unfortunate sailor fell overboard and had to be rescued by helicopter.
But with sea states between three and four, indicating swells from three to eight feet, the chop was still too subdued to be ideal for this last, rigorous round of testing for the F-35B Joint Strike Fighter.
Over the next three weeks, the F-35B will be pushed to its operational limits in this, the third and last round of shipboard testing for the aircraft. It comes just two months before the first operational squadron of Marine Corps F-35s, Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 121, is set to depart for Japan to prepare for a first shipboard deployment in the Pacific that officials now say will take place in early 2018.
