Landing an F-35B vertically is more straightforward than it looks, and far easier than doing the same in an AV-8B Harrier, said Peter Wilson, a former U.K. military aviator who is now BAE Systems’ chief test pilot.
“It’s just like magic,” Wilson told the reporters who assembled at the Farnborough International Airshow to hear about the Joint Strike Fighter from a pilot’s point of view. “It’s so much easier, so much less workload.”
Putting the jet into vertical-landing mode requires “just the push of a button” to open the air vents and ready the lifting fan, said Lockheed Martin chief test pilot Alan Norman.
“You had to be an octopus to fly a Harrier.”
From Defense News Posting
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