Demonstration at U of U lets students experience how it feels to fly an F-35

SALT LAKE CITY -- Friday offered a rare chance for engineering students at the University of Utah: a session inside an F-35 demonstrator.

Setup by Hill Air Force base and Lockheed Martin, the demonstrator was on campus this week in the Rio Tinto Kennecott Mechanical Engineering building.  Pilots from the 34^th Fighter Squadron are training at Hill Air Force Base to become the first combat-ready pilots in the new F-35.  Their goal for being operational is next fall.

"The sensors, the integration, the information that I'm presented as a pilot is a generation better than the F-16," said Lt. Col. Yosef Morris, Director of Operations for the 34^th Fighter Squadron.

Hill Air Force base is getting new F-35s at the rate of about one a month.  By next fall, 20 to 30 pilots should be trained for combat.

For a closer look at the view inside the cockpit and how the F-35 differs from its predecessors, watch the video above.