The UK, the F-35 and Strategic Considerations

08/03/2012
2012-08-03 by Robbin Laird We have posted a number of articles during the UK government's deliberation with regard to the F-35C versus the F-35B.  In a PDF special report included in this article, we have brought those articles together into one report.  A key element not so obvious within the…

Flying the F-35: A Pilot’s Perspective

07/26/2012
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…

An Interview with the First “Regular” Pilot of the F-35

07/12/2012
In an interview at Eglin AFB, Lt. Col. Lee Kloos, the first non-test pilot to start his transition to the F-35 discusses the experience.  Kloos has 2000 hours of flight experience on the F-16 and is a USAF Weapons School graduate. Kloos started his F-35 training at Eglin last October. …

First Flight of UK F-35B

04/25/2012
BK-1, the United Kingdom’s first F-35 Lightning II production aircraft, flew its inaugural flight mid-April 2012.  Lockheed Martin test pilot Bill Gigliotti took the short takeoff/vertical landing (STOVL) jet through a series of functional flight checks during a sortie that lasted 45 minutes. The jet will complete a series of…

Viewing the First F-35 Night Flight

01/25/2012
01/25/2012 The first night flight in the history of the F-35 Program was completed Wednesday, January 18, 2011 at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. Piloted by Lockheed Martin Test Pilot Mark Ward, AF-6, an F-35A conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL) variant, launched at 5:05 p.m. PST and landed after sunset…

Biography: Major General (2s) Alain Faupin

01/09/2012
Major General (2s) Alain Faupin Born in Reims, France, (DOB Dec 4 1939) MG Faupin has completed a 40 year-military career in many operational, headquarters, staffs,  education, and foreign  service positions. A graduate of St Cyr Military Academy he held  several assignments with cavalry and light armor with the French Foreign…

Adversity and strategy: two sides of the same concept

12/01/2011
The goals the decision makers set themselves require building a strategy that takes account of the conditions for exercising their activities. When these conditions are contrary we talk about adversity. But would there need strategy if there was no adversity? Operational activities are never guided by the struggle against adversity,…