Bob McCarty Writes

EDITOR’S NOTE: Having spent more than three years as an Air Force officer living and working just a few miles down the road from Marine Corps Air Station Futenma on the island of Okinawa, I have a lot of respect for Marines.  Combine that respect with my love of high-performance aircraft, and I simply had to publish the news below about U.S. Marine Corps Maj. Joseph T. “O.D.” Bachmann’s historic flight today.

Major Bachmann (above right) became the first “Leatherneck” pilot to fly the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II (above left), logging the flight-test program’s 90th mission. According to a company news release, he is the fifth pilot to fly the stealthy, multi-role fighter.

Bachmann departed the runway at Lockheed Martin’s Fort Worth plant at 11:29 a.m. CDT and flew the aircraft to 15,000 feet, checking handling qualities and engine response before landing one hour and 15 minutes later.

“The plane performed wonderfully,” said Bachmann, a member of the F-35 Integrated Test Force and one of the team test pilots who will fly the F-35B Lightning II at the Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md., test site, beginning this summer. “The U.S. Marine Corps will be getting an aircraft with extraordinary capabilities that is very easy to fly. Today is another step toward delivery of the first jets to Marines on the front line.”

The F-35 is a supersonic, multi-role, fifth-generation stealth fighter. Three F-35 variants derived from a common design, developed together and using the same sustainment infrastructure worldwide will replace at least 13 types of aircraft for 11 nations initially, making the Lightning II the most cost-effective fighter program in history.

For additional information about Major Bachmann and the F-35 program, click here.

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