UK to buy 3 JSF for carrier trials

The UK is expected to buy 3 early production F-35s for a joint test team for initial operational test and evaluation (IOT&E). The UK is already preparing for when it embarks F-35Bs on it's new carriers, the CVF, which will begin building next year. HMS Illustrious is currently host to the VAAC Harrier (below) testbed to help develop a rolling vertical take off technique for the future JSF fleet.



An 11 day "visualisation and experimentation exercise" has recently been concluded to simulate the operation of the JSF on the CVF (say that 3 times fast, while drunk). The exercise saw 8-12 sorties "performed" a day to see how operations could be sustained with the type. This apparently allowed BAE to "de-risk" the applications, oh how i love that word de-risk!