Navy F-35 Set For Sea Trials After Tailhook Redesign
The naval version of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is due to start flight tests on an aircraft carrier at sea in October after Lockheed Martin Corp. said it had fixed the tailhook used to arrest the plane's landing on a ship's deck. Lockheed was forced to redesign the tailhook, and said Wednesday that the naval version of the advanced jet--known as the F-35C--was "on schedule and progressing well for sea trials" after a test plane successfully landed 36 times with the new version during trials on land...........
The Pentagon on Wednesday cautiously welcomed progress on the carrier version of the jet after the testing of the new tailhook, which has a different shape to catch the arresting wires used to slow and halt the plane on landing. "We're not declaring victory. We have a lot more testing to do and more data to collect, but the initial results have been promising," said a spokesman for the F-35 Joint Program Office in an emailed statement.
The landing system faces another three to four months of land testing before being cleared for sea trials on the USS Nimitz, currently scheduled for October.......