June 6

What happened on June 6 in aviation and space history.

• June 6, 2010

  First flight of the F-35C, the U.S. Navy carrier variant

  First flight — The first F-35C lifted off at 11:46 from Naval Air Station Fort Worth Joint Reserve Base and flew for fifty-seven minutes. At the controls was Jeff Knowles, a Lockheed Martin test pilot and retired naval aviator with operational experience on the F-14 and a stint as chief test pilot on the F-117 programme. Several secondary sources place the flight on the 7th, confusing it with the date of the press release, which describes the previous day's flight.

• June 6, 2018

  The first British F-35B arrive at RAF Marham

  Milestone — Four F-35Bs of 617 Squadron "Dambusters", serialled ZM145 to ZM148, landed at RAF Marham in Norfolk at around eight in the evening. The United Kingdom, the programme's only tier-one partner, had spent a decade training pilots and maintainers in the United States before bringing the aircraft home. The date coincided with the anniversary of the Normandy landings.