Touchdown
The world’s most advanced fighter jet lands vertically on Navy carrier ‘Big Lizzie’
HOW F-35B TAKES OFF AND LANDS ON STATE OF THE ART SHIP
LANDING a fighter jet on an aircraft carrier at sea is one of the biggest challenges a pilot can face. But when Royal Navy commander Nathan Gray landed the Lightning F-35B for the first time on HMS Queen Elizabeth – otherwise known as Big Lizzie – he made it look almost effortless.
For not only was his vertical landing aided by a vast array of high technology in the world’s most advanced stealth fighter jet, he had also practised it several thousand times on a simulator beforehand.
Speaking aboard the carrier off the east coast of America, where the aircraft is beginning flight trials, he said: ‘I was immensely proud. I couldn’t find the words so I punched the air several times. I had to pinch myself coming around the corner to land.’
The Daily Mail watched as US jets flown by UK test pilots took off from the £3.1billion carrier and returned to land. The supersonic stealth jet – which can reach speeds of Mach 1.6 (1,217mph) – has the ability to evade enemy air defences with the lowest possible radar signature.
It has a lift fan behind the cockpit that gives it short take-off and vertical landing capabilities, working in tandem with rotating jet thrusters at the rear.
cdr Gray, 41, from Stoke- onTrent, who has test flown warplanes around the world, said of the jet: ‘The F35 is a quantum leap – it’s the world beater. Anybody who wants to face off with us should be very, very nervous and should think twice.’
He flew the first F-35B from Pax River, a US naval station southeast of Washington Dc, on Tuesday. The flight to the HMS Queen Elizabeth, which is purpose-built to work with the jet, took 20 minutes. More than 500 take-offs and touchdowns are set to take place during the next 11 weeks.
But there was a setback for defence officials yesterday when one of the US F35 fighter jets was destroyed in a crash during training. The American pilot ejected safely. The cause of the crash, outside an air station in South carolina, was last night unknown.
Defence sources in London said if it is a mechanical failure then the jets the UK has purchased will be grounded for investigation.