US Military Tests F-35 Integration With U-2 Spy Plane – Lockheed Martin

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) – The US Missile Defense Agency and the Air Force successfully connected an F-35 fighter jet with a U-2 spy plane through the multi-domain ground station, Lockheed Martin announced in a press release on Monday.
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"During the demonstration, called Project Riot, an F-35 detected a long-range missile launch with its onboard sensors and shared the information through the U-2 to the air defence commander on the ground, enabling the commander to quickly make the decision to target the threat," the release said.

Lockheed characterised the test as a "ground-breaking" demonstration of "multi-domain operations and the secure distribution of sensitive information across multiple platforms."

This test showed the "next-level" of connectivity intended to reduce the data-to-decision timeline from minutes to seconds, according to the release.

The demonstration also leveraged the F-35 sensor data for use in missile defence, the release added.

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