11/08/2014: The initial carrier tests of the F-35 have begun aboard the USS Nimitz.
It is clear from our visit to Fallon and our discussion with the head of Naval Warfare that the Navy leadership is getting ready to welcome the F-35 and to leverage the asset to work more effectively in an expanded battlespace.
As Admiral Scott Conn, the head of the Naval Strike and Air Warfare Center put it:
We are developing the means to push out the battle space and our ability to find, fix, track, target and engage the threat. The F-35 will bring enormous capability in this area.
And as the head of Naval Warfare in the Pentagon, Admiral Manazir put it in an interview two days after the initial tests about the USS Nimitz:
The initial operational capability of fifth generation fundamentally changes the way that we’re going to fight.
The photos in this slideshow provide various shots of operations aboard the USS Nimitz in early November 2014.
The photos are credited to Naval Media Services.