The latest milestone in the F-35A program belongs to airmen on the ground.The first operational weapons load crew with the 58th Aircraft Maintenance Unit qualified on the aircraft during a load Oct. 10 at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, the base announced this week. The airmen, crew chief Staff Sgt. Zachary Watts and Airmen 1st Class Robert Hughes and Reece Zoller, completed the training munitions load after technical training and load training at the base.
“Before us, there was no weapons capability,” Watts said in a 33rd Fighter Wing release. “We’re making it from an airline into the Air Force.”
The qualification test included loading dummy GBU-31 Joint Direct Attack Munitions and AIM-120 missiles.
This group is the first of 10 load crews in the wing that will be certified. Each of the other crews will now go through training and certification every month, Senior Master Sgt. Jason Sells, 33rd Maintenance Group weapons standardization superintendent said in the release. All crews will be qualified within the next six months.
“We are trying to build the most educated and most proficient F-35A weapons loaders out there,” Sells said. “Anything that we can do to help mature the program to get us ready for [initial operating capability], that’s our big thing,”
The Air Force aims to have the F-35 meet initial operating capability by late 2016. All of the program’s instructor pilots and maintenance crews are going through training at Eglin. Luke Air Force Base, Arizona, will be the home for F-35 operational pilot training and Hill Air Force Base, Utah, will host the first operational squadron.
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