Photo By Samantha Morse | Fleet Readiness Center East (FRCE) F-35 maintenance test pilot Ross Fearon taxis...... read more read more
MARINE CORPS AIR STATION CHERRY POINT, N.C. – After soaring through two decades as a Marine Corps fighter pilot, Ross Fearon wasn’t quite ready to hang up his flight suit.
Instead, he embarked on a new mission after retiring from the Corps, trading combat maneuvers for flight testing on the cutting-edge F-35 Lightning II aircraft service at Fleet Readiness Center East (FRCE). In his new role as an F-35 maintenance test pilot, Fearon ensures the nation’s warfighters receive flight-ready aircraft following modification or repair at the depot.
Now, as a civilian flying the nation’s newest military fighter jet, Fearon is member of a group that includes just a handful of individuals. As a civilian F-35 test pilot at a military aircraft maintenance facility, he’s the sole member of a very exclusive club of one.
“It definitely still surprises me sometimes when I think, ‘Wow, I’m going to jump into a $100 million airplane today and make sure everything works properly,’” Fearon said. “And, if all goes well, I’ll jump in it again tomorrow and take it across the country to deliver it to its home station. It’s a little wild that I’m still able to do this as a civilian, and I’m fortunate to have this opportunity.”
According to FRCE F-35 Branch Head Ike Rettenmair, employing a full-time civilian pilot was an innovative concept that has resulted in reduced modification turnaround times by removing the potential for pilot scheduling conflicts. Fearon is readily available to conduct aircraft pickups and deliveries (also known as ferries) and functional check flights, which determine whether an aircraft’s airframe, engines, accessories, and equipment are functioning according to standard.
“Having Ross in the office right next door to me has been a huge benefit to us from a planning perspective,” Rettenmair said “Knowing that we can, without question, put a pilot in the seat when an aircraft is ready for a functional check flight – that’s a huge gain for us. Prior to having him on board, we’d have to go out to the units and ask them to provide a pilot whenever we’d have a functional check flight or a ferry and, of course, the units have their own priorities. With Ross here, we don’t have any delays.”
Fearon’s ability to pilot all three variants of the fifth-generation aircraft also benefits the operational units FRCE serves by freeing up their pilots for mission requirements, rather than making the trip to or from Cherry Point to deliver, test or retrieve an aircraft.
“From a fleet perspective, they don’t have to pull their pilot off the schedule to come perform a functional check flight or ferry for us, because they know we have a pilot that can do either. They all know he’s fully capable,” Rettenmair continued. “That provides an additional gain to the fleet, on top of getting their aircraft back sooner.”
The move into his civilian role at FRCE wasn’t a dramatic shift for Fearon; prior to his permanent role as the depot’s F-35 test pilot, he assisted the command with functional check flights and ferries to and from the aircraft’s home squadrons. He did this while still serving as an active-duty Marine Corps officer at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, in addition to his “day job” as the deputy director for operations at the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing.
In fact, Fearon’s experience with FRCE dates back to 2013, when the depot first began performing modifications on the F-35 platform. At the time, he was a Marine Corps F-35 flight instructor stationed at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, and actually delivered one of the earliest F-35B aircraft inducted for maintenance at FRCE.
“I’ve known a lot of the folks in this program here for a long time,” he said. “And over the years, no matter where I was stationed, I would volunteer for the ferries that needed to come to FRC East, or any of the pickups from here that needed to come back to the squadron, because I enjoyed coming back to this area and working with these good people.”
When the time came to decide what he would do after retiring from the Marine Corps, Fearon said he wanted to continue flying, but wasn’t interested in flying commercially.
“And then this opportunity at FRC East presented itself and offered me the chance to essentially keep doing what I was already doing and continue flying the F-35,” he said. “I was already conducting the functional check flights, the test flights and the ferry flights for FRC East, and taking this position meant I would do it in a more permanent capacity.
“It just seemed like a good deal all around,” Fearon continued. “I was able to continue on with the people I already had existing relationships with and continue giving good jets back to the fleet. It gave me another way to continue serving, just in a different capacity on the civilian side.”
Fearon isn’t the first civilian test pilot at FRCE – the depot pioneered the concept within Naval Air Systems Command in 2021 by hiring a retired Marine Corps UH-1N helicopter pilot to support its UH-1N detachment at the North Carolina Global TransPark in Kinston. The idea has proven successful in both instances, so much so that Rettenmair said he’d like to see the approach spread within the military aviation maintenance, repair and overhaul community.
“I think the biggest gain, enterprise-wide, would be that having a civilian pilot available alleviates the fleet demand of giving up a pilot to travel, conduct a functional check flight, and ferry the aircraft back home – regardless of what platform is it,” Rettenmair explained. “Hopefully more organizations are able to get on board and reap the benefits as we move forward.”
After about six months in the position, Fearon said his favorite aspect of the job is the team he works with.
“I know it sounds surprising, because everyone expects it to the be the flying,” he said. “But honestly, the most rewarding aspect is seeing everyone work together overcome the challenges we may face to get those airplanes out the door and back to the parent units – whether it’s parts availability or tight timelines for units that are needing to deploy.
“It’s a little different from the civilian side than it was on active duty, in that people don’t expect a civilian pilot to be dropping off an airplane, and it does take some folks by surprise,” Fearon continued. “But as far as getting airplanes back to the fleet squadrons, there is no difference in the mission – it’s just unique to be able to do it as a civilian. There are only a handful of us who get that opportunity.”
As a child growing up in a military family, Fearon knew he wanted to fly. After graduating high school in Alaska, he set off for college at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he earned his bachelor’s degree while attending on a Navy ROTC scholarship.
“I was always obsessed with airplanes and knew from an early age that’s what I wanted to pursue,” he explained. “I was fascinated with taking off and landing on aircraft carriers, which is what drove me to pursue the Navy ROTC scholarship. You could say that for me, those two paths – aviation and military service – were always intertwined.
“Once I was in college and learned more about Marine Corps aviation – my grandfather was a career Marine artillery officer – the fact that Marine squadrons also frequently deploy shipboard basically sealed the deal,” he added. “The Marines I knew were always super squared away and seemed a cut above, so that’s what I was looking for.”
Fearon commissioned into the Marine Corps following graduation and, after completing officer training and flight school, was stationed at Cherry Point as an AV-8B Harrier pilot.
In 2013, Fearon was among the first groups of Marine Corps pilots to transition from flying the Harrier to the F-35B. He went on to become an F-35B flight instructor and served in that role for seven years. A brief posting at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, California, and a final tour at Cherry Point followed before he retired from service in 2024.
As an early adopter of the platform who was piloting the F-35 even before the Marine Corps declared initial operational capability in 2015, Fearon said he has seen the airplane mature and change quite a bit over the 12 years he’s been flying it.
“I’ve seen that progression occur, with all of the different software and hardware upgrades, and the capability upgrades that have come over the years,” he explained. “It’s like this airplane and I have grown up together, in a way.”
Fearon’s familiarity with the aircraft has proven helpful in the aircraft modification process, Rettenmair said.
“He is engaged with production and there are gains to be made just from his knowledge of the F-35 platform and his experience with it, because the aircraft is so unique,” Rettenmair explained. “We absolutely value his input; he’s flown these things for 12 years, so when he can provide a pilot’s perspective after flying an aircraft, it’s valuable feedback for our artisans.”
As a result of his work as both a pilot and instructor in the F-35 community, Fearon also has existing relationships with many of the Marine Corps’ F-35 pilots. That, too, has proven helpful in providing world-class service to the fleet squadrons FRCE supports, Rettenmair added.
“We have a pretty great relationship with the units that we work with, but the rapport that Ross has with them is on a different level,” Rettenmair said. “He’s speaking to the same guys he used to talk to when he was in uniform. He can go and talk to other pilots and really get an understanding of any questions or concerns they have because he speaks their language. They know him, they’ve worked with him, and he is 100 percent a trusted agent – that’s invaluable in terms of supporting the fleet.”
Fearon said his familiarity with the pilots flying the aircraft serviced at FRCE makes his work all the more meaningful.
“Because I was an instructor for seven years, I know most of the guys in those fleet squadrons,” he said. “I saw almost all of them come through as students at one point or another. And now I get to interact with them in a different way: ‘Hey, I’m testing your airplane, and I’m bringing it to you tomorrow.’ It’s very cool.
“It’s a great feeling to know that I’m helping keep them safe,” Fearon continued. “I have confidence in the work that we do here, and to be able to provide quality airplanes back to the fleet so that they can do their work-ups, their deployments, their training cycles … it’s important. I’m happy to be part of that mission.”
FRCE is the lead site for depot-level maintenance on the F-35B Lightning II and has conducted modifications and repair on the Marine Corps’ short takeoff-vertical landing variant of the aircraft since 2013. The depot also performs work on the F-35C carrier variant and the Air Force’s conventional takeoff and landing F-35A variant.
FRCE is North Carolina's largest maintenance, repair, overhaul and technical services provider, with more than 4,000 civilian, military and contract workers. Its annual revenue exceeds $1 billion. The depot provides service to the fleet while functioning as an integral part of the greater U.S. Navy; Naval Air Systems Command; and Commander, Fleet Readiness Centers.
| Date Taken: | 06.23.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 06.23.2025 10:23 |
| Story ID: | 501223 |
| Location: | CHERRY POINT, NORTH CAROLINA, US |
| Web Views: | 632 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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