Lockheed Lays Out Flight Test Plans For F-35B

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Lockheed Lays Out Flight Test Plans For F-35B
Graham Warwick

Lockheed Martin plans to complete 20 flights with the first F-35B Joint Strike Fighter in conventional “up and away” mode before replacing the engine to allow short take-off and landing (STOVL) tests to begin.

Aircraft BF-1 is expected to fly twice more this week after completing its 45-minute first flight on June 11. It has joined aircraft AA-1, a conventional take-off and landing (CTOL) F-35A, in the test program.

BF-1 is limited to CTOL flying until it is re-engined with a Pratt & Whitney F135 engine modified to eliminate a potential failure mode that caused the loss of single turbine blades in ground tests of two STOVL engines.

JSF Program Office Deputy Director Marine Brig. Gen David Heinz says the modified F135, flight test engine number 4, will be installed while aircraft BF-1 is on the ground later this year for a scheduled upgrade.

Re-engining will allow BF-1 to begin “force and moment” testing in October, he says. This will involve running the STOVL propulsion system up to full power over the hover pit at Lockheed’s plant in Fort Worth, Texas.

Heinz says BF-1 is expected to return to flight in November, to begin CTOL-to-STOVL conversion tests by opening the doors in flight. Actual STOVL tests are scheduled to begin in the first quarter of 2009.

STOVL “build-down” testing will involve 20 flights during which the aircraft will be flown progressively lower and slower until it completes a slow landing at Fort Worth.

BF-1 will then relocate to the U.S. Navy’s test center at Patuxent River, Md., for the first full vertical landings. These will be followed by short take-off tests, Heinz says.

Lockheed Martin, meanwhile, has delivered the STOVL static-test airframe, BG-1, and the second flight-test aircraft, BF-2, is expected to roll off the line in July and fly in January 2009. BF-3 and BF-4 are expected to follow by the end of the second quarter.

Heinz says the first flight of the production-representative BF-1 keeps the STOVL JSF on track to achieve initial operational capability with the U.S. Marine Corps in the second quarter of fiscal 2012.

Source
http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story.jsp?id=news/F35B061808.xml&headline=Lockheed%20Lays%20Out%20Flight%20Test%20Plans%20For%20F-35B&channel=defense