Two of the U.S. Navy's F-35C variants of the Joint Strike Fighter jet on Friday landed aboard the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower for another round of tests at sea, the program office announced.
The fifth-generation fighters made by Lockheed Martin Corp. snagged the ship's two-wire, the intended target, amid stormy weather from Hurricane Joaquin off the East Coast in the Atlantic Ocean, according to a statement from Joe DellaVedova, a spokesman for the program office.
"Despite a hurricane churning at sea and some of the worst weather experienced on the east coast of the U.S. in years, two F-35Cs landed aboard the USS Eisenhower yesterday to begin the F-35C DT-2 sea trial," he said in the email.
In the days leading up to the sea testing, one of the F-35Cs released four 500-pound GBU-12 laser-guided bombs, all inert, from its wings' pylons during recent tests near Naval Air Station Patuxent River -- marking the first time the F-35 dropped bombs from its wings.
