(This article first appeared in July 2020.)
The aircraft will participate in mock-combat operations in an area as large as 77,000 square miles as part of a massive cold weather war game.
“We take pride in knowing that not only can we survive at 50 degrees below zero, but we can launch jets in those conditions too,” Colonel Shawn Anger, 354th Fighter Wing Commander, said in an Air Force report.
Interestingly, the F-35 has already been gone through rigorous climatic testing to ensure it can operate in the harshest of conditions, including the ability to fly missions at 40-degrees below zero Fahrenheit. The cold weather testing, conducted during an earlier phase of the F-35s development, was part of an overall integrated effort to assess the jet in a range of conditions including high winds, solar radiation, humidity, rain, ice buildup and vortex icing and snow.