F-35 pilot based in Cyprus becomes first to destroy a target in combat – and celebrates with a single beer
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n the clear skies above Jordan on Monday night, a British F-35 pilot made a small piece of history. Flying for four hours alongside two Typhoons, the radar picked up two Shahed drones. The squadron tactics instructor – whom the Guardian is not naming – hit the drones with two Asraam missiles.
In doing so he became the first pilot of the Royal Air Force’s stealth fighter jet to destroy a target in combat. It was, he said, very high stakes. In those scenarios, it is easy to hit a friendly target by mistake.
“There’s a lot of assets from America, from Israel that are going to and from area of operations. So I’m a little bit more concerned about identifying it first before taking any shots, but we had good time to do that between me and the Typhoons that were airborne at the time, to get that done.”
