FEATURE
T E S T ING T HE
LIMITS Captain Tyler “Ditch” Bonnett, ’08, was delayed in his dream of being a Marine Corps pilot but persevered to become one of the first to fly the service’s newest fighter jet. By Milo Smith ///
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n September, in a first for the U.S. military, a squadron of United States Marine Corps fighter jets deployed aboard a British aircraft carrier. Ten F-35Bs embarked on the United Kingdom’s only carrier, the HMS Queen Elizabeth, for a joint training exercise. It wasn’t the first time a Marine Corps advanced fighter jet has been on the deck of the Queen Elizabeth. A year previous, Capt. Tyler Bonnett, a 2008 UND graduate, was among a small group of pilots who conducted an at-sea operational test period on the new carrier. After rocketing along the ocean, Bonnett would fly his F-35B next to the carrier and use the jet’s vertical landing capabilities to hover, then move sideways over the deck before gently setting down on the floating runway. As a Marine Corps F-35 Operational Test Pilot, and one of the earliest junior officers selected for the honor, it is not lost on Bonnett how far he has come. “It’s pretty crazy to be in the situation I am,” said Bonnett. “I’m just a small-town kid from South Dakota, you know, and I’ve always had a drive to do something special. And I’ve been extremely fortunate to be able to do what I do. There’s no doubt about that.”
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UND Alumni Magazine | Winter 2020
