The 46th Operations Support Squadron at Eglin AFB, Fla., recently won the 2005 Complex of the Year award—which honors one of the most complex airspace and airfield arrangements in the Air Force. The facility has nearly five million square yards of pavement that is used by six wings, five commands, the Army, the Navy, and six civilian airlines. Lt. Col. Mike Penland, the 46th OSS commander, calls the operation “virtually a symphony of activity that must be safely orchestrated to ensure all customers can operate safely in and out of [the area] while balancing mission requirements for test, training, real world operations, and civilian air traffic.”
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.