Posted November 5, 2015 11:23 am by Comments

By Tactical-Life

The following is a release from Rebecca Amber, Edwards Air Force Base Public Affairs:

For the first time, an F-35A Lightning II successfully fired the four-barrel 25 mm GAU-22/A Gatling gun while in flight Oct. 30.

Maj. Charles Trickey, a 461st Flight Test Squadron F-35 experimental test pilot, was in the cockpit of tail number AF-2, and fired one burst of 30 rounds and two 60-round bursts at 20,000 feet from the 25 mm gun that is embedded in the F-35’s left wing. The GAU-22 is hidden behind closed doors to reduce its radar cross section until the trigger is pulled. At full rate, it can fire 3,000 rounds per minute.

“We took off out of (Edwards Air Force Base) and went up to China Lake. We had this hazard pattern and we did three cold passes and three hot passes interspersed with each other,” Trickey said.

The weapons system did exactly what it was supposed to do, he said, but data still needed to be collected and reviewed.

Jennifer Schleifer, a Lockheed Martin AF-2 lead flight test engineer and the test director, said the team expects to fire the gun once or …Read the Rest

Source:: Tactical Life

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