Final Prototype F-35 Fighter Launched – the third (and final) of the Fleet Air Arm’s prototype jump jet has taken to the Texas skies above Fort Worth for the first time.   The aircraft will be used to train pilots and maintainers to fly, fight and look after the F-35B Lightning II.   After a series of further test flights and checks by both Lockheed and the MoD, the trials variant (ZM137) will join its two older sisters, ZM135 and ZM136, at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida; having been handed over last year.

Around a dozen Fleet Air Arm and RAF maintainers are working at Eglin, plus pilots Lieutenant Commander Ian Tidball and Squadron Leader Frankie Buchler.    Lieutenant Commander Ian Tidball is a veteran of the SEA HARRIER with 1,300 hours in the cockpit and due to become the first regular Fleet Air Arm aviator to take an F-35 aloft in the near future.    Two reservists, in their 'day jobs' as test pilots, have flown the F-35, namely Commander Simon Hargreaves and Lieutenant-Commander Peter 'Wizzer' Wilson.     Once training at Eglin is completed probably in 2014 the British team is due to decamp from Florida to Edwards Air Force Base (California) where they will carry out operational tests prior to front line service in 2016 operating out of RAF Marham, (near King’s Lynn).   The first test flights from the Aircraft Carrier QUEEN ELIZABETH are planned in 2018.