The 56th Fighter Wing at Luke Air Force Base marked a major training milestone with the graduation of its 1,500th F-35 pilot, Maj. Rolandus “Turbo” Scherders of the Royal Netherlands Air Force on Thursday, June 5.
Scherders, the RNLAF 312th Squadron director of operations, was assigned to the 308th Fighter Squadron for training and completed a five-month training course as part of Luke AFB’s international F-35 Lightning II pilot development program. The Netherlands is one of several partner nations with pilots embedded at Luke AFB, underscoring the integrated nature of training on the fifth-generation fighter.
“When they told me I was the 1,500th, the first thing that came to mind was that time flies,” Scherders said. “The program has been going for a few years, and hitting this milestone really shows how much has been accomplished in such a short time.”…