Page 6 - Lessons-Learned-at-Pax-River_Neat

In an historic first, there was no clearer example of the global nature of the program
when the first F-35 to fly across the Atlantic landed at Pax River. At 1430 on February 5,
2016, the first Italian made F-35A flew into the pattern at Patuxent River Naval Air Sta-
tion, Maryland and touched down.

The Italian AF pilot call-sign “Ninja” had only flown the jet for 50 hours previous to his
seven hour trans-Atlantic dead of winter flight. And most amazing for reliability the
airplane, which was the first built in Italy itself, had only 15 flight hours prior to the
trans-Atlantic flight completed the entire mission “up and up” with no “gripes” or
maintenance problems.

The landing of AF-01, which flew first in Italy in September, was by one of the Italian
pilots trained at Luke AFB in the Fall and highlighted the progress of the program. The
flight from Cameri to Pax River added some hours to the program, which has now more
than 50,000 hours flown by the fleet to date.

Historically, allies and partners who operate U.S.-generated fighter aircraft would do so
sequentially over time as the type/model/series progressed, with U.S. fighter pilots fly-
ing the newest jets first and then allies next as production was generated off of U.S.
lines.

For example, the first flight by the U.S. of the F-16 was in 1977, however, it took until
2001 for the first USAF F-16s to be introduced into the Italian AF. Under the terms of a
USAF and Italian AF agreement named the “Peace Caesar” program was the lease of F-
16s to make up for shortfalls in Typhoons in the Italian Air Force fleet.

Put in blunt terms, the Italians are flying the most advanced U.S. combat jet in current
production at the same time as the U.S. services. This provides a unique moment in his-
tory and a clear opportunity for shaping new global capabilities.

A key aspect of the global nature of the program is the ability of the fighter pilots of dif-
ferent services and nations to share experiences. With regard to the transatlantic flight,
Ninja commented:

Second Line of Defense Lessons Learned at Pax River
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