The Air Force’s F-35A flight suspension continued into its seventh day Monday, some of the Navy’s F-35Cs are still on hold and the Marine Corps’ F-35Bs returned to action Friday after a brief hiatus.
A fire in the back of an F-35A before takeoff June 23 caused the Air Force to halt flights at Eglin AFB, Fla., as a precaution. The suspension expanded service-wide on Wednesday while certain local operators with the Navy and Marine Corps halted flights of their F-35Cs and F-35Bs, respectively, on Thursday. Those local Navy operators who halted flights have not returned jets to the air, according Kyra Hawn, a spokeswoman with the F-35 Joint Program Office (JPO).
The Navy and Marine Corps F-35 variants were not flying on June 24 due to poor weather in Florida. A safety investigation board is looking into the cause of the fire (Defense Daily, June 27).
Matthew Wallin, a senior policy analyst with the American Security Project (ASP) think tank in Washington, said Monday the difference between a “temporary suspension” and “grounding” is mostly semantics.
“The term ‘grounded’ is a colloquial term to describe a plane that is restricted from flight operations due to maintenance, safety or other reasons,” Wallin said. “Whether that suspension is permanent, which would be exceedingly rare, or temporary would depend on the reasons for said suspension.”
The F-35B has much heralded international appearances coming soon at the Royal International Air Tattoo (RIAT) and the Farnborough Air Show, both in the United Kingdom in July. The F-35 is developed by Lockheed Martin [LMT] with subcontractors BAE Systems and Northrop Grumman [NOC]. Pratt & Whitney of United Technologies Corp. [UTX] supplies the F135 engine for the F-35. Rolls-Royce provided the vertical lift system for the F-35B short takeoff and vertical landing (STOVL) variant.