Media Galleries : Combat Aircraft

Measuring the antenna performance, or pole testing, began at Rome Research Lab eight years ago. The joint Lockheed Martin-F-35 Joint Program Office engineering team realized in the early stages of the F-35 program that a computer simulation could not adequately test the range, isolation, and overall performance of the aircraft’s antennas. And testing the antennas before the program finished building the first production aircraft was crucial.

Through the end of June 2012, the System Development and Demonstration, or SDD, test pilots set new records for most flights in a month – 123 flights in March 2012 – and most test points in a month – 1,118 in June 2012. The F-35 test program had conducted 595 test flights in 2012 and accrued 4,830 test points.

While the delivery of the last F-22 in May 2012 marks the end of F-22 production, the history of the F-22 program is still being written at the operational and training units, in flight testing of new capabilities, at the support centers, and upgrade and modernization programs that will come in future years.

Pilots, maintainers, and personnel from the 132nd Fighter Wing, the Iowa Air National Guard F-16 unit in Des Moines, deployed to Afghanistan in February 2012.

Collection of videos of the F-22 Raptor.

The 4,500th F-16 Fighting Falcon built worldwide was delivered in ceremonies 3 April 2012 at Lockheed Martin in Fort Worth, Texas. Employees, customers, program officials, and national, state, and local elected officials attended. The milestone aircraft was an Advanced Block 52 F-16 for the Royal Moroccan Air Force.

Through 3 March 2012, the F-35 test program had completed 161 flights totaling more than 250 flight hours and had accrued more than 1,100 test points. F-35B test pilots have executed twenty-three vertical landings so far this year. With several more checkout flights completed, thirty-three pilots have now flown the F-35. Twenty-six pilots are flying currently.

This first half of a two-part F-22 chronology covers the major program events from those first studies to that first flight in 1997.

The 149th Fighter Wing, the Texas Air National Guard unit located at Lackland AFB in San Antonio, trains both active duty and Air National Guard F-16 pilots in a variety of courses, from a basic course for new F-16 pilots recently graduated from undergraduate pilot training to a requalification course for experienced pilots.

The Block 52+ F-16 was chosen by Poland in 2002 after an exhaustive competition that involved several other fourth-generation fighters. The contract, signed in April 2003, included forty-eight F-16s, spare engines, missiles, precision-guided munitions, pilot and maintenance technician training, and a multibillion-dollar offset program.