JSF Training Commander Confident He Will Get First F-35 Aircraft In Fall

Inside Defense ^ | 5/28/2010 | Marcus Weisgerber

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

The commander of the Joint Strike Fighter training wing is confident the Pentagon will receive its first F-35 jets this fall, leading to the graduation of the first cadre of pilots and maintainers next year.

“We’re going to have jets in the fall,” 33rd Fighter Wing Commander Col. David Hlatky said during a May 27 briefing at the F-35 training school house. “Unless there is some major event that nobody can imagine, we’re going to have jets in the fall.” The unit is “banking on November” right now for receiving its first aircraft and will be ready to fly on Sept. 1, according to Hlatky. Lockheed officials claim the first two low-rate initial production F-35s will arrive at Eglin in the November-December time frame. In all, the wing is slated to receive 59 fighters.

Despite having no aircraft, a contingent of about 200 Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps personnel are building the F-35 training course and preparing for the arrival of training and simulation equipment.

Pilots currently stationed at the base will become the first instructors. JSF instructions are expected to start flying the plane in the fall. Next year, those instructors will train the first batch of students, according to Marine Corps Col. Art Tomassetti, vice commander of the wing. That first group will be experienced fighter pilots qualified in existing aircraft. Once they finish their schooling, the first pilot class will become operational testing contingent at Edwards Air Force Base, CA. “In the spring of 2012, we will get our first youngster, man or a woman, coming from the undergraduate pilot training from the Marine Corps” who will transition straight into the F-35, he said. “

[threepercenter]

“Kraken” Hlatky is the first F-35 Wing Commander???? Good lord, what has the world come to. I remember him when he was a Captain in Kunsan AB, Korea. Good guy, boy they grow up fast.