First F-35Bs Operate off of HMS Queen Elizabeth

First F-35Bs Operate off of HMS Queen Elizabeth. The F-35B Lightning Jets Landing on and Launching From Britain’s Newest Carrier for the First Time

Royal Navy Commander Nathan Gray and RAF Squadron Leader Andy Edgell were the first pilots to land their F-35 Lightning stealth jets on the flight deck of HMS Queen Elizabeth.

First @thef35 takes off from @HMSQnlz Exciting time on the path to IOC and FOC @DefenceHQ #bigdecksfastjets It’s so impressive. Powerful. Slower than I thought too! pic.twitter.com/OHCDoFA20m

— Alexander Stephenson (@XStephenson) September 30, 2018

The first landings and subsequent take-offs from HMS Queen Elizabeth “are the culmination of a British endeavor lasting more than a decade to bring an aircraft carrier back to the UK’s arsenal,” says an official U.S. DoD release.

According to the ITF, the tests “will evaluate jet performance on over 200 test points during different weather and sea conditions as well as the aircraft’s integration with the ship. A third FOCFT (FW) phase followed by operational testing is scheduled for 2019.”

The first landings were performed as HMS Queen Elizabeth operated off the U.S. East Coast. The aircraft carrier left Portsmouth in August, crossing the Atlantic to conduct the flying trials and joint training with the US Navy. The flight trials are scheduled to take around 11 weeks and +500 take-off and landings. The target is to be ready for a deployment from 2021.

The first landings were performed as HMS Queen Elizabeth operated off the U.S. East Coast. The aircraft carrier left Portsmouth in August, crossing the Atlantic to conduct the flying trials and joint training with the US Navy. The flight trials are scheduled to take around 11 weeks and +500 take-off and landings. The target is to be ready for a deployment from 2021.

https://twitter.com/awhiting0307/status/1045780894211080194

Commodore Andrew Betton, the commander of the UK’s Carrier Strike Group, said: “The Queen Elizabeth-class carriers have been specifically designed and built to operate the F-35, offering an immensely flexible and potent combination to deliver military effect around the world.

“Conducting these trials is a critical and exciting step on this journey and I applaud the many thousands of civilian and military personnel who have played a part in bringing the strategic ambition to reality.”

F-35s hitting the Queen Elizabeth’s deck for the first time is a huge milestone for the Royal Navy and the UK Ministry of Defense as a whole. After entirely forfeiting its fixed-wing aircraft carrier capacity eight years ago with the retirement of the Harrier and the aging Invincible class carriers that took them to sea, getting that capability back, and in an expanded form, is quite exciting. In fact, I have never seen UK defense enthusiasts this amped up—almost to a comical degree, to be honest—about anything in the past. But when you consider they saw a staple Royal Navy capability suddenly strangled to its death nearly a decade ago, Friday’s milestone couldn’t have come soon enough.