TORONTO - Canada’s first F-35 has taken to the skies. It’s the first new model of fighter jet with Canadian markings in 44 years. The historic first flight took place Wednesday in Fort Worth, Texas, home to Lockheed Martin’s final assembly plant. The F-35 will replace at least some of the Royal Canadian Air Force’s (RCAF) aging CF-18 Hornets, which Canada first took delivery of in 1982. Canada signed on in 2023 to buy 88 of the jets, but Prime Minister Mark Carney ordered a review in March 2025 amid tensions with the United States. The first 16 aircraft are committed, while the government weighs whether to buy the remaining 72 or turn to alternatives such as Sweden’s Saab Gripen. The CF-35A Lightning II with “Canada” painted behind the cockpit and a maple leaf on the tail, took off just before noon for what witnesses say was a roughly 90-minute flight. Gherardo and Victoria Mae Fontana, a husband-and-wife team of aviation enthusiasts and photographers, captured the moment and posted it on Instagram. Video shared by them shows the Canadian jet coming in to land, trailed by a second F-35 flying as a chase plane. “There were quite a few people!” Victoria Fontana told CTV News in a message when asked if there was a crowd. She said the Dallas-Fort Worth area has a sizable plane-spotting community that are interested in both military and commercial aircraft. The only apparent official acknowledgement came from Lockheed Martin Canada’s X account, which posted: “The first CF-35A took to the skies for the first time today.” Asked for more details, a spokesperson for Lockheed Martin said, “questions would be best addressed by the Department of National Defence (DND).” CTV News has reached out to the DND for comment but has not yet received a response. “I think the silence is ordered,” says Scott Clancy, a retired RCAF major-general, an adviser at Henley Strategies and a fellow at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute. “So, this is now just a political decision and that’s why the Canadian Armed Forces has been specifically told you will not comment on that,” said Clancy. Clancy said pilots in the Canadian Armed Forces including future F-35 pilots are excited for the new plane. “They’re very excited about this generational advancement that they’re going to make in terms of technology and they are preparing hard for that.” Despite the controversy around the purchase of the jet, Clancy said Canadians should take notice of the first flight. “I think we should be proud because a significant portion of that jet, although we call it an American jet, is Canadian,” he said. Lockheed Martin says each F-35 contains more than $3 million in Canadian-made components from suppliers in six provinces, including the F-35A’s horizontal tail assemblies built by Magellan Aerospace in Winnipeg.
