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same time, the UK is building out its UK infrastructure to move forward as a key ele-
ment of what will eventually become a European F-35 air enterprise.

In blunt terms, this means that the UK will have its aircraft at least three years earlier
than if relied simply on building its own infrastructure and then generating an opera-
tional squadron from that infrastructure. This is a factor which is largely ignored by the
critics of the program.

Question: How does the ITF work from a UK point of view?

Gordon Stewart: “Let me speak to my case. I am employed by QinetiQ, but I am work-
ing here on behalf of the UK Ministry of Defence. At the ITF, there around 900 people
working here with the vast majority being U.S. Around 2/3s of the work force are con-
tractors, and a third is government, and within that mix there are a number of UK na-
tionals.

The UK is the only level one partner in the F-35 program, which means that we are
more closely involved in the test phase of the program than other partners. And, in my
case, I work as a Flying Qualities (FQ) engineer on the 30-40 person FQ team as an inte-
grated member.

As FQ engineers, we look at things like flight control laws and how the pilot interacts
with those controls and what the aircraft feels like to fly in a wide range of conditions.
Where we do identify issues as we expand into new areas of the flight envelope, we
work closely with the control law designers in Fort Worth to have those issues resolved.

We deal with the software that relates to flight controls, and those systems feeding data
into the flight controls from the mission systems. Things like how the aircraft is going to
get information from the ship as to where it is, what direction it is going, or how fast it
is going. There are pieces of that which feed into the flight controls to help with recov-
ering the aircraft to the ship and making that whole process safer, and more effective.”

Question: The UK is making a joint investment in development and your role is to
have a foot in both camps so to speak.

Second Line of Defense Lessons Learned at Pax River
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