Forum: F-35 milestones

"EGLIN AFB — The engine of the F-35B was still running Wednesday morning when Marine Sgt. Robert Coates ran a hose from a 20,000-gallon tanker trunk to pump fuel into the jet.

The process of refueling with the jet’s engines running, dubbed “hot refueling,” takes about 25 minutes....

...The refueling process has allowed Marine Fighter Attack Training Squadron 501 to increase its sorties by 40 percent. Four Marine F-35s flew eight sorties Wednesday, one year to the day after the branch’s variant of the military’s newest stealth fighter jet took off for the first time at Eglin....

...Overall, they’ve taken almost 900 flights and spent over 1,100 hours in the air....

...“I could not be more proud or pleased with what we’ve been able to do in the last year,” said Lt. Col. David Berke, commander of the squadron.

Part of the process has been to develop maintenance procedures for the jet, from replacing a wing tip light to removing and installing an engine.

“Every time you have to fix something on this airplane, it’s the first time it’s been fixed,” Berke said.

Since the jets arrived, the maintainers at Eglin have authored more than 1,000 procedures that will be used for years to come.

They have trained about a dozen pilots and numerous maintainers, and sent them to the Marine Corps Air Station at Yuma, Ariz. The fleet there will be the military’s first combat-ready force within the next two years.

That will be possible in part because of the work of the 200 Marines at Eglin over the past year,Berke said.

“We’ve allowed them to hit the ground running,” he said. “When they are declared operations capable in 2015, they are really going to have capability. They aren’t going to be cleared on paper to start figuring things out; they are going to be ready to roll.”

The Marines soon will receive their first Block 2 aircraft, which will have even more capabilities, Berke said. They will eventually have 24 jets at Eglin....

...Berke has commanded the Marines squadron for just over a year.

He said he is honored to be a part of the program at such an important point in its growth, but that he also feels obligated to the aircraft that the country and the world will likely depend on for decades to come.

“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing to get to write the first chapter of a story that’s going to last 50 years,” Berke said."

Look into the urban dictionary....

Might he be family to the famous Wildcat pilot cmdr Flatley?