In late 2011, I wrote about the F-35C's problems with arresting landings as part of a summary history of the practice. See http://thanlont.blogspot.com/2011/12/brief-history-of-tailhook-design.html
The testing in question occurred in early 2011, not "2012" as recently reported in USNI News (http://news.usni.org/2013/12/23/navys-f-35-starts-new-tailhook-tests).
If you read between the lines as I had intended, you would have thought that the fix would not be a big deal. It may not have been, but only now, more than two years later, is the Navy reporting an initial success:
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The testing in question occurred in early 2011, not "2012" as recently reported in USNI News (http://news.usni.org/2013/12/23/navys-f-35-starts-new-tailhook-tests).
If you read between the lines as I had intended, you would have thought that the fix would not be a big deal. It may not have been, but only now, more than two years later, is the Navy reporting an initial success:
Lockheed Martin Photo
I'm not sure that this was the first arrestment in the recent past, but this one reportedly occurred at Pax River on 19 December 2013. The airplane will now go up to the Naval Air Engineering Station at Lakehurst, New Jersey for an extended evaluation beginning in January.
In an interview published in Defense News in January 2012 (http://www.defensenews.com/article/20120117/DEFREG02/301170010/F-35C-Tailhook-Design-Blamed-Landing-Issues), the Lockheed Martin program manager projected that the Lakehurst testing would take place in the second quarter of 2103, with at-sea trials in the summer of 2013.
In an interview published in Defense News in January 2012 (http://www.defensenews.com/article/20120117/DEFREG02/301170010/F-35C-Tailhook-Design-Blamed-Landing-Issues), the Lockheed Martin program manager projected that the Lakehurst testing would take place in the second quarter of 2103, with at-sea trials in the summer of 2013.
I thought his prognostication sounded about right...