RAF JSF Debut
26 February 2010
The first RAF pilot to fly the F-35 Lightning II – known in the UK as the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) – has spoken of the remarkable experience and the aircraft that is set to become the future of the Service.
As callsign ‘Lightning 7’ – Sqn Ldr Long flew the JSF at at 20,000 feet (6000m) over Naval Air Station Patuxent River in Maryland, USA.
He is the seventh pilot to fly the aircraft that is equipped with the most powerful and comprehensive sensor suite of any fighter in history.
Sqn Ldr Long, 38, said: “It’s awesome. Once you have flown this aircraft and seen what it is like and the awareness it gives to pilots, you wonder what we have been doing for the last 100 years.”
The JSF is a fifth-generation fighter, combining advanced stealth with fighter speed and agility, fully fused sensor information, network-enabled operations, advanced sustainment and lower operational and support costs.
Sqn Ldr Long has been spending between two and four hours per day for the last 21 months training on simulators in America with VX-23 US Navy Air Test and Evaluation Squadron, in preparation for the flight.
He said: “The aircraft flies just the way the simulator does. It feels like it’s going to be an aircraft that likes the high angle of attack.
“It’s powerful and rolls quickly, and it likes to go where you point it. In terms of fuel burning – it burns a lot of fuel at low altitude, but as soon as you get it to where it is designed to operate, between 20-30,000 feet, it is very slick and very efficient.”
Sqn Ldr Long joined the Cambridge University Air Squadron in 1992 and the RAF three years later.
He has flown the Harrier on Ops over Bosnia, Kosovo and in Iraq, but describes the JSF cockpit as like no other.
Sensors around the aircraft allow the pilot to have what Sqn Ldr Long describes as a ‘God’s eye view of the battlefield’.
He said: “It’s a game changer in the cockpit. It does not have three or four tv screens dotted around with steam driven gauges and buttons everywhere – there is just a 20x8 inch flat screen.
“It’s an iPhone on speed. It’s all touch screen and completely configurable to the way the pilot wants to set it up.
“You can see as much as you want to from your own aircraft or what other aircraft in your formation are seeing.
“In a tactical environment you really have global awareness of the battle field.
“The cockpit has gone back to what the pilot wants.
“There is voice control and a phenomenal helmet mounted display. It’s a virtual Head Up Display. It all appears in front of you.
“It’s a quantum leap in awareness and it just makes everything easy.
“The aircraft flies easy. If you take your hands off the controls it will just fly itself. It trims itself.
“It has a very comprehensive suite of auto-pilot functions.”
Sqn Ldr Long has spent much of his RAF career in America. After his first tour with 20 (R) Sqn, his second tour was an exchange with VMA-311, a USMC Harrier sqn at MCAS Yuma, Arizona.
He has flown a variety of British, American and Russian aircraft.
The JSF carries the most advanced radar of any aircraft, the Active Electrical Scanned Array (AESA).
Sqn Ldr Long said: “The thing that sets this aircraft apart is the radar in the nose. The ranges and fidelity, accuracy and capability is just a quantum leap in capability in terms of what it can do.
“We have an all weather capability against tactical sized targets.
“With a legacy ground mapping radar you can see airfields, bridges and hangars for example, but with AESA you can see vehicles and actually positively ID what they are at tactically significant ranges.”
Sqn Ldr Long will soon be one of the first pilots to perform the first hover and vertical landing, and next year the JSF will go through its first sea trials and attempt landings on an American Naval Aircraft Carrier.
.jpg)
