Air Force Materiel Command has opened at Edwards AFB, Calif., a range mission control room built specifically to monitors tests of the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter. The F-35 Integrated Test Force, comprising military, government civilian, contractor, and foreign partner personnel, are conducting testing of the F-35 and will have about 40 flight test engineers manning the control room. SrA. Jason Hernandez reports that the new control room is unique because it is “entirely personal-computer based.” The 412th Range Control Squadron, which maintains and operates all the Edwards control rooms, decided that existing control rooms simply didn’t have enough capacity to incorporate JSF testing.
The Air Force is launching an effort to develop a new stand-off missile with a range of 1,000 nautical miles, or 1,150 miles, that would eventually be used for both air-to-air and air-to-surface missions.