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419th pilot flies Hill’s hundredth F-35 sortie

  • Published
  • By Bryan Magaña
  • 419th Fighter Wing Public Affairs
HILL AIR FORCE BASE, Utah --  

Maj. Jayson Rickard, a reservist in the 466th Fighter Squadron, flew his first local sortie in the F-35 Lightning II here today. Rickard's flight marks the 100th sortie in the F-35 at Hill AFB since the first combat-coded aircraft arrived in September.

 

Rickard is also the first Reserve pilot in the 419th Fighter Wing to fly the F-35, having finished training at Eglin AFB, Florida, last month.

 

Together, the active-duty 388th Fighter Wing and Air Force Reserve 419th FW are working toward F-35 initial operational capability, or IOC, by fall of 2016.

 

In the three months since the first F-35s arrived at Hill, only two of 129 scheduled sorties have been lost due to maintenance issues. Initially, the 34th Aircraft Maintenance Unit generated 33 sorties without losing a line for maintenance.