Lockheed Martin announced Wednesday that AF-3, the third F-35A test aircraft in the Air Force’s conventional takeoff configuration, flew for the first time on July 6. Lockheed Martin F-35 test pilot Bill Gigliotti took it on a 42-minute flight around Lockheed’s F-35 assembly plant in Fort Worth, Tex. AF-3 is the ninth F-35 test aircraft overall and the second to carry the powerful avionics suite that will reside on all operational F-35s. “AF-3 is very much like the first production F-35s we will deliver to the US Air Force later this year,” said Doug Pearson, Lockheed’s vice president of F-35 test and verification. The aircraft will soon begin tests with the avionics package, which includes a Northrop Grumman-supplied advanced electronically scanned array radar system. BF-4, an F-35B short-takeoff variant flying since April, was the first F-35 test aircraft fitted with the avionics.
The general in charge of the Space Force’s component to U.S. Central Command said Oct. 19 he expects that in about three years his small team of Guardians will be five times the size it is today—growth that he said is needed to meet the military’s demand for space capabilities…