“In order to withstand the forces experienced during an arrested landing, the keel of an F-35C is strengthened and the landing gear is of a heavier-duty build than the A and B models,” an official with the F-35 Integrated Test Force said. Also, the F-35C has larger, foldable wings to facilitate slower approach speeds compatible with moving ships, Navy officials said. The F-35C is engineered to be larger than the Air Force’s F-35 A or Marine Corps short-take-off-and-landing F-35B because the structure of the aircraft needs to be able to withstand the impact of landing on a carrier. The shore landings also seek to replicate an airplane condition known as “yawing” when the body of the aircraft is moving from side to side. High sink rate is reached when an aircraft is descending 21-feet per second, much faster than the typical 10-feet per second descend rate, Wilson explained. “We’ve done about 90 carrier-style landings,” he said. While recognizing that the mix of conditions at sea on board a carrier cannot be replicated on land, Wilson said the test landings seek to simulate what he called unusual attitudes such as instances where the aircraft is rolling with one side up or descending faster than normal with what’s called a “high sink” rate. “The whole purpose is to make sure the landing gear and the aircraft structure are all suitable to take the stresses that the pilot could see while trying to land aboard the deck of an aircraft carrier,” Wilson explained. Max engaging speed involves landing the aircraft heavy and fast to determine if it is the aircraft or the arresting gear that gets damaged, Wilson explained. Test pilots are working on what they call a structural survey, an effort to assess the F-35C’s ability to land in a wide range of scenarios such as nose down, tail down or max engaging speed, said F-35 Test Pilot Lt.
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