A “ground mishap” has just occurred to an F-35A Lightning II at Eglin Air Force Base. Nose gear collapse
Just in from 33rd FW: “An F-35A Lightning II, assigned to the 58th Fighter Squadron, experienced a ground mishap at approximately 12:50 p.m. today on the flightline here. The F-35A experienced an in-flight emergency and returned to base. The aircraft landed safely and parked when the front nose gear collapsed. There was one person on board. Fire crews responded immediately and the pilot suffered no injuries as a result of the incident. An investigation into the circumstances surrounding the mishap is underway.”
A photograph, taken by a motorist from a road near the incident location, of the aircraft nose down next to the runway was published by local news outlet.
Image credit: Michael Snyder/Daily News
The extent of the damage (and the subsequent cost) is unknown (the aircraft’s Electro-Optical Targeting System – EOTS – might be heavily damaged). Nor is it clear the type of emergency that forced the F-35A to return to Eglin AFB where it suffered the gear collapse.
Two F-35A Lighting II Joint Strike Fighters were due to depart Eglin AFB in Florida on Thursday morning, August 23, 2018, for the Thunder Over Michigan airshow at Willow Run Airport in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Public Affairs officers at Eglin AFB have verified that the F-35A involved in today’s incident is not one of the two aircraft to be displayed at the airshow this weekend.
There have been two other significant incidents with the aircraft including an engine fire on an F-35A on Sept. 23, 2016 at Mountain Home AFB in Idaho and on Oct. 27, 2016 when an F-35B part of Marine Fighter Attack Training Squadron 501 caught fire in the internal weapons bay causing significant damage. The ground incident at Mountain Home AFB was attributed to strong winds blowing into the afterburner outlet of the aircraft.
We will provide further updates as soon as they are released.
Written with Tom Demerly
Top image: File photo of an F-35A Lightning II departs for Exercise Red Flag 17-3 July 6, 2017, at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Peter Thompson/Released)
Here are some cool photographs of the first British F-35B welcomed by the RAF Typhoons and escorted to the first landing in UK.
On Jun. 29, the first British F-35B Lightning II, piloted by RAF pilot Squadron Leader Hugh Nichols and accompanied by two U.S. Marine Corps airframes and by a pair of U.S. Air Force KC-10 tankers and USMC KC-130Js, landed at RAF Fairford airbase, UK, at the end of the STOVL (Short Take Off Vertical Landing) variant’s first transatlantic crossing that marked the first landing of an F-35 in the UK.
An event that was broadcast live by the U.S. Marine Corps on their Facebook page.
Using callsign “Tabor 01,” the flight flew to the UK from MCAS Beaufort, South Carolina, to attend the Royal International Air Tattoo 2016 and Farnborough International Airshow in the next few weeks.
The first UK appearance of the controversial 5th Gen. stealth aircraft was initially planned to take place in 2014 but it was cancelled shortly before the four USMC F-35Bs started their transatlantic trip after a runway fire incident involving an F-35A at Eglin Air Force Base, on Jun. 23, 2014, caused a temporary fleet-wide grounding.
Interestingly, the formation was welcomed into the British airspace by three RAF Typhoons.In this post, some cool photographs released by the British MoD of the formation heading to Fairford along with the escort fighters.
The U.S. Air Force has released the report and photos of the mishap suffered by an F-35A Lightning II in June 2014.
A U.S. Air Force Air Education and Training Command (AETC) Investigation Board team has completed the investigation into the mishap occurred to an F-35A assigned to the 58th Fighter Squadron, 33rd Fighter Wing, Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, on Jun. 23, 2014.
According to the report, the F-35A suffered a failure of the third-stage rotor of the engine fan module. The aircraft was taking off for a training mission when the engine caught fire: the pilot safely aborted the takeoff and exited the aircraft.
Although emergency crews responded to the burning aircraft and extinguished the fire, the F-35A was heavily damaged: “Pieces of the failed rotor arm cut through the engine’s fan case, the engine bay, an internal fuel tank, and hydraulic and fuel lines before exiting through the aircraft’s upper fuselage. Damage from the engine failure caused leaking fuel and hydraulic fluid to ignite and burn the rear two thirds of the aircraft. The total mishap damage is estimated to be in excess $50 million.”
Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 101, the “Grim Reapers,” based at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, deployed with its F-35s to NAS Lemoore, the future basing site for the F-35C.
VFA-101, the U.S. Navy newest F-35 unit based at Eglin AFB, Florida, deployed to NAS Lemoore, California, for a six-day visit to the future basing site for the F-35C (the Carrier Variant version of the Joint Strike Fighter), that is scheduled to receive 10 JSFs by 2017.
A former F-14 squadron, the VF-101 “Grim Reapers” was disbanded after the retirement of the Tomcat and was reactivated in 2012 to receive the controversial plane that is going to become the backbone of the U.S. carrier air wings strike capabilities: in fact, by 2025, the Navy’s aircraft carrier will operate a mix of F-35Cs, F/A-18E/F Super Hornets, EA-18G Growlers electronic attack aircraft, E-2D Hawkeye battle management and control aircraft, MH-60R/S helicopters and Osprey tilt-rotor Carrier Onboard Delivery aircraft.
During the six-day visit, two F-35C Lightning II jets flew in formation over the Sierra Nevada mountain range with an F/A-18E and an F/A-18F belonging to VFA-122 from Naval Air Station (NAS) Lemoore.
An F-35 Lightning II has endured extreme weather temperatures to certify the capability of the Joint Strike Fighter to deploy to any place of the world.
An F-35B, a STOVL (Short Take Off Vertical Landing) variant of the Joint Strike Fighter jet, from the F-35 Patuxent River Integrated Test Force in Maryland has undergone extreme weather testing at the U.S. Air Force 96th Test Wing’s McKinley Climatic Laboratory located at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida according to a release by Lockheed Martin.
The testing is aimed to validate the capability of the plane to operate in the meteorological conditions representative of all the locations from which the aircraft is going to operate: from the Australian Outback and the U.S. deserts, to the Arctic Circle, above Canada and Norway.
The F-35B has been ferried to Eglin AFB in September 2014 and it is expected to remain at the airbase in Florida until March 2015: a six month assessment of the Joint Strike Fighter’s performance in wind, solar radiation, fog, humidity, rain intrusion/ingestion, freezing rain, icing cloud, icing build-up, vortex icing and snow.
According to F-35 test pilot Billie Flynn, the aircraft is being pushed to its environmental limits, ranging from 120 degrees to -40 degrees Fahrenheit (49 to – 40 degrees Celsius) and so far it has met expectations.
The press release comes few weeks after an Air Force press release, reported that fuel trucks at Luke Air Force Base, in Arizona, where temperature can reach beyond 110° F (43° C) in summer months, were given a new look, by applying a two layer coating, dubbed “solar polyurethane enamel”, in order to prevent fuel stored in the tanks from over-heating: the Lightning II engine has a fuel temperature threshold and may suffer shutdowns if the fuel is delivered to it at high temperature.
Image credit:Michael D. Jackson, F–35 Integrated Test Force
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