'LowObservable' said: "...WhiteOvies - Wheeler raises a perfectly valid point. As you note, the VL pad at Pax is AM-2 mat, but laid over concrete as a heat-shield rather than as a structural surface over dirt or cr@ppy asphalt. The VL pads at Yuma and Beaufort are made of heat-resistant concrete. There's some notion of a
"creeping vertical" landing but there is no word as to when that will be demonstrated at all, let alone on the equivalent of a 3,000-foot-somewhere-ending-in-stan runway...."
"...BF-1 accomplished the first F-35
five Creeping Vertical Landings (CVLs) on August 23 [2012]...."
F-35 Lightning II Program Status and Fast Facts September 5, 2012
http://f-35.ca/wp-content/uploads/20...ber-5-2012.pdf (164Kb)