Major Shaitan Singh
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FARNBOROUGH, England Whens the last time you heard a fighter pilot shrug, look down and say, Eh, my airplane sucks. Or as one might say here, Blimey, me jet is roobish!
So all other things being equal, it wasnt surprising that three experienced aviators convened by defense behemoth Lockheed Martin raved about its F-35 Lightning II, but their descriptions about operating it were nonetheless interesting. In the small world of fast-jet drivers, the number of F-35 pilots is minuscule.
Lockheeds chief test pilot, Alan Norman, said he was amazed how easy it was to learn to fly and master the F-35. The Marine Corps top F-35 trainer, Col. Art Tomassetti, said young aviators dont need to learn to read analog gauges and memorize unsafe RPMs or temperatures the same way they used to; instead the F-35s glass cockpit has green, yellow and red indicators that give such info in a second. And BAEs test pilot, Peter Wilson, a longtime British Harrier driver, said flying the B was simply magic.
Wilson described how much work it took monitoring the Harriers controls, controlling its power, and generally trying to put the airplane where he wanted as he hovered and landed. (You had to be an octopus to fly the Harrier, Tomassetti quipped.) With the F-35B, Wilson said, he pushes a single button, and the jet can slow from 200 knots to a hover by itself, as the airplane looks after you.
Wilson was asked about the ungainly appearance of the B in its short takeoff and vertical landing mode, when the jet sprouts all manner of crazy hatches and ports and even a big air brake aft of the cockpit. Do all those surfaces make it tough to fly? Far from it, Wilson beamed.
You think, whats the pilot doing? he said. Hes pushing a button and flying as normal. From the cockpit, the B does exactly what its told and its pilot doesnt even notice the brake or the hatches or any of the rest of it, Wilson said.