Two F-35B Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) test jets flew six times on Wednesday, March 10, above Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md., clearing the way for the program's vertical landing tests. One aircraft, flown by test pilot Graham Tomlinson, was a Short Takeoff and Vertical Landing (STOVL) variant of the Lockheed Martin design. It flew multiple hops in close pattern work, with each trip flown at a lower airspeed than the one prior, and with "hot pit refueling" (without shutting down the engine) performed between each flight. For this test, each landing was performed at a higher speed than its associated pattern work and culminated in a 40-knot fly-by followed by a 75-knot landing. The test program of the shaft-driven vertical lift fan and aft vectored thrust system will now move on to vertical landings. While the March 10 flights were uneventful, the politics surrounding the aircraft -- the most expensive acquisition in U.S. military history, according to Aerospace & Defense News -- continued on March 11 to be more dramatic.