The Navy’s newest Joint Strike Fighter jet, the F-35C Lightning II, launched its first 1,065 pound AGM-154 Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW) during trials over the Atlantic on March 23, the Navy announced this week.
The exercise was conducted by the F-35 Lightning II Pax River ITF joint team, assigned to the Air Test and Evaluation Squadron (VX) 23 at Naval Air Station Patuxent River in Maryland.
“Test aircraft, CF-05, cleanly released the 1,000-pound air-to-surface guided glide bomb from an internal weapons bay,” said U.S. Navy Cmdr. Ted “Dutch” Dyckman, the F-35 Lightning II test pilot who flew the mission.
Additional JSOW are planned to be dropped throughout 2016 in more multi-phase testing operations, the Navy said.
