In this fascinating insight into the early flight testing of Lockheed Martin's Lightning F-35B, BAE Systems test pilot Graham Tomlinson takes us through the programme to develop the stealthy, multi-role attack aircraft and explains many of the challenges that faced the test phase of the project. The lecture and question and answer session include comparisons between the Lightning and the Harrier, anomalies found within the fly-by-wire systems and how modern flight simulators have advanced to support the flight-test regime.

Graham Tomlinson addressed a meeting organised by the Royal Aeronautical Society’s Flight Test Group on 11 May 2009 and the podcast was edited by Mike Stanberry FRAeS.