Milestone
First vertical landing of an F-35B at Patuxent River
March 18, 2010
Test aircraft BF-01, again flown by Graham Tomlinson, made a short take-off at 80 knots at 13:09 Eastern time and thirteen minutes later brought the aircraft to a hover 150 feet above the airfield at Naval Air Station Patuxent River. It held the hover for about a minute and descended onto a marked 95-foot landing spot. The shaft-driven lift fan system delivered more than 41,000 pounds of vertical thrust during the manoeuvre.