F-35 first flight video

www.liveleak.com...


its got multiple angles ie take off / in flight / chase plane shots, and shows some nice shots of the F-35.

I hope this hasn't been posted before, but if it has, mods please feel free to delete it.

Enjoy, DK.

The official video which is a longer version of the one you linked to was posted on YouTube 11 days ago, and it was posted here on ATS (by me) 10 days ago.

However I'd just like to take this opportunity to say that due to a nagging fuel probe problem, bad weather and Christmas. LM decide early on that if they could not get a second flight in before the 22nd all flight ops would be postponed until after the new year. So I hope you're having a nice holiday so far, because things will not stay quite for long...

i dont get what so special about this plane?
isn't this the plane that was in a compition who could build the best all around fighter plane 6 years ago.
?

Originally posted by thedangler
i dont get what so special about this plane?

unlike its predisessor the f-35 has stealth design incorperated into its design, the harrier was bulky and coulnt carry a large payload.

it can break the sound barrier which the harrier couldnt since of its bulky parts everywhere

its more manovible since it doesnt use a fixed wing and tale like the hairrier and so forth

Actually, there is about nothing very "special" about the aircraft itself. Most of the F-35s features have already been done better on other aircraft. There are stealthier planes, there are planes with better handling, there are planes that are better at specific tasks and there are also planes that followed the multirole approach decades ago (something the USAF and Navy resisited for a long time).

The 3 "specialties" of the F-35 program however are: on the technical level, an apparently unprecedented amalgamation of existing concepts; on the international level, being the single largest international military project ever; and on the economic level, being the attempt of the USA and Lockheed to get suppress every indigenious airplane industry of the western world.

I watched your video westpoint. Truly amazing plane, a perfect landing. This was the first time I saw the "first flight". Any reason why it flew with the grears down all the time?

Originally posted by Figher Master FIN
Any reason why it flew with the grears down all the time?

I believe the original plan was to shortly retract the gear and then lower it again but when the fuel probe malfunctioned the flight was cut short a bit and that part was skipped, in part due to safety issues. Remember, this was only the first flight, its just a general evaluation of the aerodynamics and design. More complex tasks (such as raising the gear for extended periods of time) will be performed in subsequent flights.

FIN we don't want this to happen now do we? ...





[edit on 30-12-2006 by WestPoint23]

Originally posted by Figher Master FIN
I watched your video westpoint. Truly amazing plane, a perfect landing. This was the first time I saw the "first flight". Any reason why it flew with the grears down all the time?

First flights are usually done to show that the plane will fly stable in straight and level flight and make turns without any major issues. They leave the landing gear down for most of the flight just so that nothing happens and they have to make an emergency landing because of the gear. There have been many previous first flights where they raised the gear and when they landed found major hydraulic leaks, or they had to crank the landing gear down because it wouldn't lower.