A New Era?

F-35 rollout highlights RAAF’s “greatest opportunity for evolutionary change”

Twelve years after Australia first signed on to the Joint Strike Fighter program, the first F-35A Lightning II for the RAAF has been ceremonially ‘rolled out’ – in reality unveiled from behind a curtain – at Lockheed Martin’s sprawling Fort Worth, Texas plant.

The July 25 public debut of the first RAAF jet – dubbed AU-1 by Lockheed Martin, but with the RAAF serial A35-001 – gives