Air Armament Center officials at Eglin AFB, Fla., have completed a series of test flight demonstrations for the Weapon Data Link Network—leading ultimately to the ability to communicate with a weapon after it has left an aircraft. The WDLN defines a standard way for aircrews, battlefield airmen, and a Combined Air Operations Center to “talk” with network-enabled weapons. It enables users to provide target updates, change the target, or abort the strike, says Kevin Sura, who led the demonstration. The demo team produced more than 140 runs across 12 official demonstration missions, during which the test weapons confirmed current information, reported their status, and provided bomb hit indication information—just as planned.
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.