A California Air National Guard F-16 crashed Friday morning during a routine training flight. The pilot from the 144th Fighter Wing at Fresno safely ejected. The day before on the other side of the country, a T-38 from the training wing at Columbus AFB, Miss., crashed about 40 miles south of Memphis, Tenn. The student and instructor pilots both ejected safely.
It'll take up to 18 months for Lockheed Martin to deliver the 100 or so F-35s that went directly from production line to storage, awaiting the completion of Tech Refresh 3 testing. Customers haven't complained about the order in which the backlog is being delivered.