111015-N-UM734-932USS WASP: The Marines and Navy have spent most of the last three weeks putting the new F-35B through its paces here, executing more than 90 short takeoffs and vertical landings, including 19 at night.

More than 1,200 Marine test pilots, engineers, experts from the Joint Program Office running the program and Navy and industry civilians are collecting enormous amounts of data from the two aircraft, BF-1 and BF-5, and the ship itself to ensure the planes are performing as they should. The Marine version of the Joint Strike Fighter is designed to take off from smaller aircraft carriers, some other Navy ships, roads and land bases. It can land vertically and usually does a short take off.

I headed out to the Wasp yesterday morning with a small group of journalists on V-22s, Marine aircraft capable of taking off and hovering like a helicopter and flying like a plane. Ironically, both JSF planes had glitches while we were out on the ship, though BF-1 began flying again soon after we left. The second plane appeared to have a “pretty significant problem,” a crew member told me. Its Integrated Power Package, a sort of super generator that powers many of the plane’s sophisticated electronics would not start. I’ve emailed the Joint Program Office for an update and will update this as soon as we hear from them.

One of the biggest concerns about the F-35B, which directs most of the engine’s power directly down to the ship’s deck as it lands, was that it would damage the ship’s deck so much at each landing that the Wasp and other ships — or the F-35B — would have to be redesigned to mitigate that problem. I spoke with several deck crew, the men and women who wear yellow shirts on the carrier deck and execute the dangerous ballet of launching and retrieving aircraft from the Wasp. They say that, after taking off and landing several times almost every day since Aug. 12, they are seeing less damage to the deck than it sustains from some other aircraft that routinely fly from the Wasp and other LHD class ships.