Military Aircraft Videos

F-35 Lightning II first flight

The F-35 took to the air for the first time at 12:44 p.m. CST on Friday, Dec. 15 with two F-16s and an F/A-18 as chase aircraft. F-35 Chief Pilot Jon Beesley took the fighter to 15,000 feet but was forced to cut short the planned one hour flight to 35 minutes after one of the data measurement systems aboard the plane gave abnormal readings.