Next-generation F-35 Fighter Jets Go To National Guard Unit

The first two of an eventual 20 F-35 jets arrived last Thursday at the Vermont Air National Guard base in South Burlington, the first Guard unit to receive the next-generation fighter.

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Guard members and friends clapped as the planes flew over the airport for the first time, doing several flyovers after the three-hour flight from the factory in Fort Worth, Texas.

The delivery follows years of work and planning, as well as missions in the Guard’s previous aircraft, F-16s that flew continuously for weeks over New York after the Sept. 11 attacks and in combat tours in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East.

“Bringing the F-35 to Vermont secures our future for decades, and our country needs this airplane,” Col. David Smith, the commander of the 158th Fighter Wing, the new home to the F-35s, said after the planes arrived.

But for some members of the community, the arrival of noisier aircraft marks the failure of yearslong efforts to keep the Air Force from delivering the planes to an airport that sits amid residential neighborhoods and industrial complexes in the middle of Vermont’s most populous county.