Lockheed Martiin's F-35
The Marine F-35B variant of the Joint Strike Fighter is inching closer to in-flight releases of weapons following a recent run of tests that involved dropping inert munitions into a pit. The F-35 integrated test team at Naval Air Station Patuxent River completed multiple tests by dropping the weapons from its internal bay into a foam covered concrete pit.
“Completion of these weapons ejections into the pit gets us closer to in-flight release of weapons from the F-35,” says Navy Captain Erik Etz, Director of Test and Evaluation for F-35 naval variants. “It is another step in expansion of the F-35’s warfighting capabilities.”
The pit drops allow for the measuring of stress on the air frame and evaluation of functions of the weapon and suspension equipment function. Among the weapons dropped were inert versions of the GBU-12 Laser Guided Bomb, the 1,000 lb GBU-32 Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) and the AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile.
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