That article is more than a year old and doesn't accurately reflect the current state of the gun. Here's the current state. F-35A test aircraft AF-02 has compl

That article is more than a year old and doesn't accurately reflect the current state of the gun. Here's the current state. F-35A test aircraft AF-02 has completed initial test firings of the internal gun on the F-35A variant, both on the ground [1] and in flight [2]. The F-35B and F-35C carry their gun externally, in a centerline gun pod [3]. The gun pod has been tested over the past several years [4] on the ground, and will be tested on those variants later this year. The 2017 date in that article you posted refers to when the cannon on all variants will be integrated with the mission systems software. So just as it is disingenuous to say "the F-35 cannon testing is complete" it's also not completely accurate to say "it doesn't have a functioning cannon yet." The engineering reality is more nuanced than that. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFoJ93Kb5z0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFoJ93Kb5z0 [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEAhFZG022M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEAhFZG022M [3]: http://aviationintel.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/20120222_O_GR159_001-copy.jpg http://aviationintel.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/20120222... [4]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTDomgJooJU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTDomgJooJU