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| Tidball at the controls. Air Force photo |
EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. -- The first United Kingdom Royal Navy student aviator at the 33rd Fighter Wing training to be an F-35B instructor pilot completed his first sortie in the joint strike fighter here April 10. Royal Navy Lt. Cdr. Ian Tidball flew with the Marine Fighter Attack Training Squadron-501. "From a handling perspective, it is a responsive and smooth airplane to fly with an awful lot of thrust and power," said Tidball. "Everything I trained for, especially taking advantage of the full mission simulator made this an easy flight." Tidball’s preparation included about six weeks of academics and kinetically-based simulators at the F-35 Academic Training Center. The center is the high-tech hub in a campus designed especially for fifth-generation joint strike fighter maintainer and operator training. It is hosted at the 33rd FW. (Source: 33rd Fighter Wing Public Affairs, 04/10/13)
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