A TOP Gun RAF pilot has become the first Brit to fly one of the air force’s new £60 million wonderplanes.
Squadron Leader Steve Long was just the third man on Earth to pilot the Lightning II F-35B Joint Strike Fighter, the controversial jet dubbed the future of both the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy.
He took the 1,300 mph stealth fighter for a 70-minute test flight up to 20,000ft.
Steve, 38, said it was a “privilege” to test the plane set to dominate the 21st century.
He said: “Flying the F-35 was exactly like the simulators I’ve been flying for over 18 months now, which gives you a lot of confidence in all the modelling and situation work that has been done.”
It was a crucial mission for Steve, who has more than 100 operational sorties to his credit over Iraq, Sierra Leone, Bosnia and Kosovo.
The flier from Ifold(CRCT), West Sussex, has clocked up more than 2,200 hours in the air and currently flies F-18A-D jets with the US Marines.
“I’ve been lucky enough to spend a significant part of my career in the US and I still love it over here.
“It’s hard to get to watch the cricket! You go into a sports bar here to try to watch it and they’ll have 25 TV screens with every sport under the sun, apart from England winning the Ashes for the first time in decades!
“I finally discovered a source of Marmite and Ribena over here – but they make you pay through the nose for it!”
The new jet is said to be as agile as a fighter, invisible to enemy radar and with cutting-edge sensors which make it an amazing eye in the sky.
Armed with a 25mm four-barrel cannon and air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles, it will fly above the battlefield of the future able to beam video, still and infra-red images to other planes, tanks and ships.
Steve explained: “What this aircraft really gives the RAF and the Royal Navy is a quantum leap in airborne capability because of the sensor suite it carries.
“An F-35 pilot will have an unprecedented level of situational awareness about what’s going on in the airspace around him or her, and also on the battlefield or ocean below.
“Not only that, but the F-35 will plug into coalition battlefield networks and be able to pass that picture on to all the other players in the network.”
The F-35 will be able to hover or use short runways and so be able to fly from very close to the front line.
Defence kit minister Quentin Davies told the Daily Star Sunday: “This is an exciting moment for us all. Steve is a very lucky man. He is the first of many generations of RAF pilots, selected and trained to the highest standards, who will be flying this aircraft over the next 30 years providing this country with the very best available capability in combat strike.”
The UK will plough £9 billion into getting 150 of the aircraft.
It has bought three for testing but the plane already has a troubled history. We revealed how early test versions would have struggled in the heat of Afghanistan or Iraq.
This paper also predicted it may not arrive in time to equip the UK’s new aircraft carriers, with the first one due in 2016.
Last week US Defence Secretary Robert Gates sacked Major General David Heinz, the leader of the F-35 programme over rising costs and delays.
Posted: Sun 7 February 2010, 12:54:21 , by TwoToneVisuals
Re: VIDEO: BRIT ?TOP GUN? TESTS ?60M SUPERJET
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Absolutely essential to the British armed force's is PROTECTION! This however is the tip of the umberella, or hand in hand, tip of the iceberg, scratch the surface, which ever way you want to look at this?
This plane look's EXACTLY the same as the one before it, and the one before that, e.t.c e.t.c?
With what is available now to the M.O.D in way of technology..... Build us a fighter plane that has everything! C'mon you people, we have everything at our disposal and every patent pending that now, or the future will ever have. I smell a rat though? A big fat rat getting fatter with every fighter plane that roll's off the assembly line? Here's how to be the most feared nation on earth:
Backed into a corner!
Example's are Afgahnistan, iraq, Iran........ Packistan.
It's not the size of the plane or the size of your gun, it's the size of your unpredictability. A scared man is more likely to pull a crazy stunt rather then the man stood holding him there?
9-11 all over again. They probobaly just wanted to get the first punch in? Like the inquest said, America and Britain were already planning an attack well before 9-11. A leaked dossier is not uncommon? Also, in the wrong hand's, info like that will only bread anxiety.
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