The F-35A has just begun training flights at Hill Air Force Base in Utah. The event was celebrated with a tower flyby which resulted in some awesome shots of the jet against Ogden’s high terrain in the background.

Although the pictures are cool, the . In fact, training flights with the aircraft, which is still deep in testing, will be all the Air Force’s expanding fleet of F-35As are able to do for the foreseeable future as many of its capabilities are yet to be delivered.

The Project On Government Oversight (POGO) has a damning report on the F-35B’s shipboard…

This whole buy it as you test it concept, , has dogged the F-35 program over the last decade. Now, with close to 150 F-35s built, with none of them actually combat capable, airframe hours will be spent training on a non-combat representative weapons system that still remains largely under construction.

Concurrency isn’t coming. It’s already here. And what was once an incredibly naive high-hopes…

It won’t be until sometime in 2017 that the USAF will hopefully declare the F-35A operational. That is if everything goes perfectly as planned, and this date is still highly controversial as it doesn’t mark a developmental milestone

Still, at least we can enjoy some cool photos for the many billions of tax dollars already sunk into this questionable program.

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Photos via USAF