This is the story behind that F-35 with ‘arctic camouflage’

This article originally appeared on The Aviationist.

Some of our readers asked us to investigate the story behind an F-35 mock-up painted in arctic color scheme, located at Lockheed Martin's Forth Worth, after the mysterious model was featured on the reputable F-16.net forum.

The mock-up has been sitting in a LM yard, from at least April 2012 to December 2018, when it was moved (the aircraft can still be seen in the latest imagery). Since 2012, photos taken from space show the F-35 model in different locations, along with other test articles and mock-ups, including the X-35 and A-12.

The LM yard with several mock-ups, including the F-35 in arctic paint scheme.

(Google Earth via Dragon029)

"There aren't a lot of photos / points in time when the yard was shot from space, but in January 2016, January 2017 and February 2017 it's also missing from the yard (there are no photos between those 3 times though, so it might have been gone for 13+ months, or it might have just been gone the days, weeks or months that those photos were taken)," says user Dragon029, who also pointed us to the somehow mysterious aircraft.

In this thread you can see all the satellite images Dragon029 has collected: they show all the locations the F-35 mock-up has been in the last 7 years.

As mentioned above, the "arctic F-35" was last moved in December 2018. User hawgwash took a clear shot of the mock-up as it was being moved. Here it is:

The mock-up being moved in December 2018.

(Photo by hawgwash)

We asked Lockheed Martin to provide some details about the mock up and here's the reply we got from Michael Friedman, a Lockheed Martin spokesman for the F-35 program:

"The image is a model that resembles an F-35A that was originally used to test aspects of our Aircraft Test Facility. The model has since been used in various exercises and testing to include flight line safety and fire suppression testing. The paint scheme, which was created with spare F-16 paint, was chosen by the artisans and is not directly related to the model and its role in the program."

Mystery solved.

This article originally appeared on The Aviationist. Follow @theaviationist on Twitter.