High over Maryland, a grey Marine Corps F-35B Lightning II opened its belly in level flight and let go of a long white missile. It fell away cleanly, its rocket motor cold and its fins locked. Nobody fired anything. That was the point.

On 5 November 2026 the F-35 Joint Program Office and MBDA announced that an F-35B had jettisoned a Meteor beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile from its internal weapons bay for the first time. The trial itself was flown more than four weeks earlier, on 7 October 2026, at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland.

It is the first in a series of separation tests that should end with live firings, and it moves Britain and Italy a step closer to putting their most capable long-range air-to-air missile inside their stealth jets.

What Happened Over Pax River

The aircraft was a specially instrumented US Marine Corps F-35B assigned to the F-35 Integrated Test Force at Patuxent River. The weapon was a Meteor test asset, not a live round. According to the JPO, the missile separated from the jet without igniting its rocket motor or activating its control surfaces.

A combined UK and US team of Royal Navy, Royal Air Force and Lockheed Martin personnel prepared and loaded the round. MBDA says the sortie was flown by a Royal Navy F-35 test pilot assigned to the Air and Space Warfare Centre and embedded within the test force.

The JPO image released with the announcement shows the moment of separation: the F-35B in straight and level flight, the missile already well below the fuselage.

Why a Jettison Test Comes First

Dropping a missile out of a bay is harder than it sounds. When the doors of a stealth fighter open at speed, the airflow inside the cavity becomes violent and unsteady, and a store released into it can pitch, yaw or strike the jet on the way out.

MBDA explains that jettison testing checks how cleanly and safely a missile detaches from its host aircraft in normal operation or during an emergency abort, without hitting the fuselage, damaging structure or upsetting the aircraft's flight dynamics. The JPO says the 7 October trial demonstrated safe separation in a complex aerodynamic environment.

The data now goes back into the digital models engineers use to predict how the missile leaves the jet. Those models will shape every later release, so getting the first one right matters more than any headline.

From Captive Carry to Release

This is the second visible step for Meteor on the F-35B. In early 2025, VX-23 F-35Bs at Patuxent River flew the first captive-carry sorties with an inert Meteor in the bay, gathering environmental data on how the missile copes with life inside the jet.

The UK leads the Meteor integration on the F-35B, while Italy sponsors parallel work on the F-35A. In December 2025, Lockheed Martin, MBDA and the JPO completed ground vibration testing and weapons-bay fit checks for the F-35A version.

Support for the programme comes from the UK Ministry of Defence, the US Department of War and Italy's Ministero della Difesa, together with Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems, MBDA and Northrop Grumman.

What Meteor Brings to the F-35

Meteor is already the primary long-range air-to-air missile on the Eurofighter Typhoon of the Royal Air Force. What sets it apart from rocket-only missiles such as the AIM-120 AMRAAM is its throttleable ramjet. A solid booster gets it going, then the ramjet keeps pushing for much of the flight instead of burning out early and coasting.

That sustained thrust lets the missile manage its energy and arrive at the end of a long shot with power still in hand, which is what shrinks a target's chances of out-turning it. Meteor also carries a two-way datalink, so the launch aircraft, or another platform, can update it in flight.

Paired with the F-35's sensors, that gives British and Italian F-35B pilots a much longer reach than they have today. The Italian Air Force flies both the F-35A and the F-35B, while the British fleet is made up of F-35Bs flown by the RAF and the Royal Navy.

Et ensuite ?

MBDA says Meteor will be put through a series of release profiles over the coming months to prove safe separation across the F-35's operational envelope. Those developmental releases are meant to culminate in live firings that check both separation and how the missile flies after it leaves the jet.

No in-service date for the F-35B Meteor combination was given in the announcement. For now, the milestone is simpler and more important: the missile can leave the bay of a hovering-capable stealth fighter cleanly, and the engineers have the data to prove it.

Sources: F-35 Joint Program Office (DVIDS), MBDA, Defence Industry Europe, UK Defence Journal, The Aviationist