On the good side, the F-35B, specifically air frame BF-01, has finally engaged the lift fan in flight, and everything was, as the flight test people say, “Nominal”:

The Lockheed Martin F-35B Lightning II stealth fighter engages its short takeoff/vertical landing propulsion system in flight for the first time, near Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md., on Jan. 7. F-35 Lead STOVL Pilot Graham Tomlinson said afterward that the aircraft flew smoothly with the STOVL system engaged and was very easy to control.”

This is a good thing, though it is somewhat behind schedule, and Lockheed-Martin is thinks that it is necessary to add planes to the test program, so as to reduce the test schedule slippage from 2 years (!) to 6 months:

Lockheed Martin Corp. may add an aircraft-carrier model to a group of F-35 test planes as the company works to limit delays on the fighter jets to six months or less instead of the two-plus years expected by the Pentagon.

I’m not sure that this would help though, as Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has just ordered a delay in deliveries of the aircraft:

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has ordered a delay in the Lockheed Martin Corp. F-35 program, cutting the Pentagon’s planned purchases by 10 aircraft in fiscal 2011 and a total of 122 through 2015, according to a budget document.

More than $2.8 billion that was budgeted earlier to buy the military’s next-generation fighter would instead be used to continue its development.

The delay is a setback for both Gates and Lockheed.

Setback is one way to put it.

So is clusterf%$#, death-spiral, shambles, snafu, and many other words I’m not in the mood to look up right now.