An expert believes this legislation benefits the USAF because it may be able to modify and use these aircraft in situations where using new, operational F-35As would be cost-prohibitive. A retired USAF pilot, who was given anonymity because he is not authorised to speak to reporters, told Janes on 4 January that these situations include exercises and maintenance training.
They also include using the aircraft to experiment with new technologies or to train new test pilots. Using test aircraft in these situations would be much cheaper than using “full-up” F-35As, the retired pilot said.
These original test aircraft are in long-term storage because they are the oldest version of the F-35 and do not resemble the current A-model versions. These test assets have older avionics and test instrumentation, for example, and thus have very limited utility in their current configuration.