The F-35A first flew in December 2006. The F-35B followed in June 2008, with the British test pilot Graham Tomlinson making the first full-stop in mid-air in March 2010 and the first vertical landing the following day. The Navy’s F-35C took to the air that June. A symbolic handover of the first F-35B to the British government, represented by the Defence Secretary, Philip Hammond, was made at a ceremony at Forth Worth in July last year, and in November US Marines took delivery of three F-35Bs at Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, Arizona. To date there have been just over 2,500 F-35 test flights, as programme and production – running concurrently – have come up to speed. No one doubts that there are development problems to overcome, yet even the most vociferous naysayers have tended to go to ground as F-35s have taken, increasingly confidently, to the air.