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It’s been hailed as the Pentagon’s priciest arms purchase programme.
But yesterday the F-35B fighter jet silenced its critics as it cleared a major hurdle and completed its first vertical landing.
Boosted by 41,000lbs of thrust, the plane, which is part of U.S. plans to develop the next generation of military fighter jets, landed smoothly at Naval Station Patuxent River in Maryland.
Test pilot Graham Tomlinson, in a radar-evading F-35B, hovered for a minute then descended to a 95-foot square pad.
The landing demonstrated the ability to operate from a very small area at sea or on shore.
Tomlinson began the roughly 14-minute flight with an 80-knot short takeoff.
The Marine Corps is due to start using the jump-jet version in December 2012.
It is the latest in jet technology first launched by the British Military designed Harrier Jump Jet.
A conventional F-35 is in early production for the U.S. Air Force, and the Navy will get a model that lands on aircraft carriers.
America is scheduled to buy more than 2,400 of the supersonic fighters, the backbone of its air combat fleet for coming decades.
Affordability was supposed to be a hallmark of the aircraft, which is also being built for eight overseas partners and other projected foreign buyers, including all those now flying Lockheed's F-16 fighter.
The F-35's average cost has soared 60 per cent to 90 per cent in real terms beyond what was projected in 2001, when development began, Pentagon officials told Congress last week.
The Air Force and Navy versions are now due to be ready for combat as much as four years after the Marines' F-35B.
Designed primarily to attack ground targets, the aircraft in the test Thursday was powered by a single engine built by the Pratt & Whitney unit of United Technologies Corp.
The eight U.S. co-development partners are Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Turkey, Canada, Australia, Denmark and Norway.
The vertical landing was ‘a vivid demonstration of innovative technology that will serve the global security needs of the U.S. and its allies for decades to come,’ Robert Stevens, Lockheed Martin's chairman and chief executive, said in the statement.
Hurdle: The fighter jet had come under fire from critics complaining it was over budget
Test flight: The F-35B completed its first hover landing near the Patuxent River in Maryland
Fighter first: The F-35B jet lands vertically at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland, U.S., yesterday
