An Italian Air Force F-35A on Friday afternoon completed the first transatlantic Ocean crossing, arriving at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md., from Cameri Air Base, Italy, according to a Defense Department statement.
The F-35A landed at NAS Patuxent River at 2:24 p.m. EST. The two-phase deployment across the north Atlantic to the United States required a total of 11 flight hours, enabled by an Italian Air Force KC-767 aerial refueling tanker, which refueled the F-35A known as AL-1 seven times during the ocean crossing. AL-1 departed Cameri, near Milan, on Thursday and flew the first leg of its journey with the KC-767 and Typhoon escort aircraft to Lajes Air Base in Portugal. After remaining overnight, AL-1, the KC-767 and Typhoon continued onward to NAS Patuxent River.
AL-1 is the first international jet fully built overseas at the Cameri Final Assembly and Checkout (FACO) facility owned by the Italian Ministry of Defense and operated by Finmeccanica in conjunction with F-35 prime contractor Lockheed Martin [LMT]. AL-1 will begin three months of electromagnetic environmental effects (EEE) evaluation and certification while at Naval Air System Command’s integrated battlespace simulation and test facility.
AL-1 will join the F-35 international pilot training fleet at Luke AFB, Ariz., the first of five F-35s Italy has committed to the international training fleet there. Italy is now ready to start the next phase of the process, the phase-in of the Italian F-35 fleet, which will see the first F-35 landing at the newly-renovated Amendola Air Base before the end of this year.
The F-35 Joint Program Office (JPO) did not return requests for comment by press time Monday.