Class is in session at the Air Force’s main F-35A training base.
Luke Air Force Base, Arizona, this month began its first class, with two F-16 instructor pilots and two A-10 instructor pilots selected to teach the inaugural class, the base announced this week.
The new pilots will take three months of academic and simulator training before taking their first flight in the aircraft, from the base’s 61stFighter Squadron.
“It’s a build-up approach training where we start with academics, move to hands-on training with the simulators and finally to the aircraft,” Lt. Col. Matt Hayden, director of operations at the 56thTraining Squadron, said in a Luke news release.
F-35 instructor pilots have been were trained at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida.
The first class at Luke will stay at the base to begin training more pilots, Hayden said.
“The pilots going through the training right now are going to be staying here at Luke to be instructors,” he said in the release. “When they graduate they may very well turn around in a matter of days to instructing students in what they just learned.”
Luke is expected to receive 144 F-35s by 2024 for training. The first operational F-35 squadron will be at Hill Air Force Base, Utah.
