It was a historic day in Layton, Utah and FighterSweep was on hand to witness it! At approximately 1256 local time, the overhead pattern came alive as the first two combat-coded F-35A Lightning IIs arrived for bed-down at Hill Air Force Base.
The aircraft were flown in by Colonel Brad Lyons, the 388th Fighter Wing Commander, as well as Lieutenant Colonel Yosef Morris, the Director of Operations for the 34th Fighter Squadron.The jets were escorted in by a Block 40 F-16CM, flown by Colonel Bryan Radliff, the commander of the Air Force Reserve’s 419th Fighter Wing. Representing “Ops 1” for the Air Force, Hill will eventually be home to 72 examples of the 5th-Generation Joint Strike Fighter.
These two aircraft, tails 5071 and 5072, are both Block 3I jets, which provide initial warfighting capability. That includes data links, multi-ship sensor fusion ability, the updated Integrated Core Processor, and initial live weapon capacities.
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It was a historic day in Layton, Utah and FighterSweep was on hand to witness it! At approximately 1256 local time, the overhead pattern came alive as the first two combat-coded F-35A Lightning IIs arrived for bed-down at Hill Air Force Base.
The aircraft were flown in by Colonel Brad Lyons, the 388th Fighter Wing Commander, as well as Lieutenant Colonel Yosef Morris, the Director of Operations for the 34th Fighter Squadron.The jets were escorted in by a Block 40 F-16CM, flown by Colonel Bryan Radliff, the commander of the Air Force Reserve’s 419th Fighter Wing. Representing “Ops 1” for the Air Force, Hill will eventually be home to 72 examples of the 5th-Generation Joint Strike Fighter.
These two aircraft, tails 5071 and 5072, are both Block 3I jets, which provide initial warfighting capability. That includes data links, multi-ship sensor fusion ability, the updated Integrated Core Processor, and initial live weapon capacities.
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