"F-35C Completes First Arrested Landing aboard a..." Topic

… U.S. Navy Aircraft Carrier.

"The U.S Navy made aviation history Nov. 3 as an F-35C Lightning II carrier variant Joint Strike Fighter conducted its first arrested landing aboard an aircraft carrier off the coast of San Diego. U.S. Navy test pilot Cmdr. Tony Wilson landed F-35C test aircraft CF-03 at 12:18 p.m. aboard USS Nimitz's (CVN 68) flight deck.

The arrested landing is part of initial at-sea Developmental Testing I (DT-I) for the F-35C, which commenced Nov. 3 and is expected to last two weeks.

"Today is a landmark event in the development of the F-35C," said Wilson, a Navy test pilot with Air Test and Evaluation Squadron (VX) 23. "It is the culmination of many years of hard work by a talented team of thousands. I'm very excited to see America's newest aircraft on the flight deck of her oldest aircraft carrier, the USS Nimitz."…"

Full article here
link

Amicalement
Armand

Yay!

Massive milestone!

Good to see it finally flying, and getting on board a carrier successfully. Not that I had any doubt about the latter.

Wonder how long it took the pilot to unstick himself from the seat after that first trap?

I know I'd be puckered so tight the seat cushion would likely never be seen again…

Lovely pic. But Nimitz is the oldest US carrier now? That makes me feel old.

Same here. Midway, Coral Sea, Sara, Forrestal, Independance, Kennedy, Enterprise, Ranger, Constellation, America. All gone since I joined the Navy in 1981…

We need to quit naming carriers after all these BS politicians and get back to using all those classic names.

Los

Speaking as a Brit, I have to agree with Los. The US Navy has a whole raft of epic ship names that resonate with history. The recent batch of ships named after politicians nobody's heard of outside the USA is truly bizarre. Presidents and admirals' names I could understand, but minor politicians?

God forbid that we should ever have HMS Peter Mandelson or HMS Leon Brittan…

I agree with Los too.

I don't really like some of the modern non-politician names either such as naming ships after ground pounder SEALS or Marines, national parks (USS Mesa Verde), bureaucrats (USS Nitze), people who died without doing anything notable other than dying (USS The Sullivans, USS Stethem), political correctness (USNS Carl Brashear, USNS Cesar Chavez) or foreign politicians (USS Winston Churchill).

The Arleigh Burke class particularly suffers from these names.

I suspect the next group of ships will be named after environmental activists, actors and random taxi drivers of middle eastern decent.

Here in Australia at least the names are mainly geographical with some historical, heroes and battles getting named too.

What Jemima said.

Sovereigns and successful admirals, fine. Politicians, with a few exceptions (like 'Iron Duke'), not so much.

HMS Duncan Sandys? HMS John Nott? *shudder*

I wouldn't consider the Sullivans as inappropriate. Also, the Winston Churchill had at the time it was promised a much higher significance than it does now. Otherwise there are enough historically significant names that we could stick to them without ever running out.

I still think we should have a tugboat named Bohica.

Here we go again… The recurring 'I don't like the way ships are named' grouse. Get use to it, people. That's the way it is now (for a whole host of reasons) and all the grumbling in the world will do nothing about it.

Get over it (and yourselves…).

I wouldn't consider the Sullivans as inappropriate.

They died on a troop ship. Horrible for the family at the time but not exactly doing anything to honour great naval traditions.

The Sullivans is a permanent reminder to the Navy that you should never allow an entire family to serve on the same ship.

They needed to name a ship to remind them of that?

I guess the next one will be the "USS Smoking Causes Lung Cancer." :P

"They died on a troop ship. Horrible for the family at the time but not exactly doing anything to honour great naval traditions."

Wrong. The five Sullivan brothers served aboard USS Juneau and died when their ship was torpedoed by IJN I-26 enroute from Guadalcanal (where Juneau was severely damaged in the Battle of Guadalcanal). All but 10 of the crew died. And the name is thoroughly appropriate.

They needed to name a ship to remind them of that?

In WW2 they apparently did.

And after the very distinguished career of DD537 The Sullivans ( link 9 battle stars!), naming a Burke for her made sense.

"Get over it (and yourselves…)."

Wow, there's a statement I could simply repeat with the same import.