As F-35 Remains Grounded, Hope Turns to Farnborough 12 Jul 2014 AARON MEHTA
"...A source with knowledge of the situation said the travel plan calls for the four F-35Bs to be refueled around 20 times each. The reason: for the first trip across the Atlantic, the service wants to make sure the plane is able to get to land in case of any emergency. The idea is to keep tanks above three-quarters full at all times.
The source added that this is fairly typical of new designs making their first flight across an ocean....
..."This is a deployment," [LM VP] Martin said. "This is the US Marine corps deploying their aircraft overseas, testing spare parts, testing ALIS [the plane's logistics system] remotely, testing their flying profiles and how to do a long duration flight. This has value in it which far outreaches the air show… they're going to learn a lot.""
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