Airshow at Edwards AFB

X-35 "Joint Strike Fighter"

Take the basic design of the new F-22 Raptor, take away one of its powerful engines, add a small, vertically mounted jet engine and what have you got? The soon-to-be-designated F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

Around 1997, a fierce competition was taking place in the Mojave Desert between two large aircraft manufacturers: Lockheed Martin and Boeing. They were competing to be the supplier of the next generation of fighter aircraft. The Air Force needed a replacement for its aging F-16, the Navy needed a replacement for its aging F-18 Hornet and the Marines (as well as the British Royal Air Force) needed a replacement for the AV-8B Harrier. The Air Force and Navy wanted a plane to be stealthy like the F-22 and F-117 and the Marines and Brits wanted their replacement plane to have the same "Jump Jet" or "V/STOL" (Vertical/Short Take Off and Landing) capabilities as their current Harriers. And everyone wanted this dream plane to be able to go supersonic, too! There were also many USA-aligned nations looking to replace their aging F-16's.

Both Lockheed and Boeing were awarded development contracts to come up with their versions of airplanes that would meet these desires. Lockheed seemed poised to grab the production contract since it had a lot of experience developing the the radar-evading abilities of the F-117 and F-22. Boeing, on the other hand, hadn't developed a fighter plane (embarrassingly called the "pea shooter") since the 1930's and seemed less likely to win the competition. Boeing, however, had acquired McDonnell Douglas a few years earlier which gave them the added experience of their development of the F-15 and other fighter aircraft and the assembly of the AV-8B (actually an aircraft designed by the British).

So the competition over the skies of Edwards and other places around the Mojave Desert continued until 2001 when Lockheed Martin was awarded the very lucrative contract. Boeing's X-32 was a good aircraft but not as good as Lockheed Martin's X-35. The main reasons for the Lockheed Martin victory was their ability to demonstrate that their prototype could take off vertically, go to above supersonic speeds and land vertically. Other major contractors that are working with Lockheed Martin on this project include Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems (British Aerospace).

The X-35 (that will become the F-35) is now being manufactured at Lockheed's well-known Skunk Works facility at Palmdale, California's Air Force Plant #42. Fleets of both the F-22 and the F-35 will be in some phase of assembly at this facility well into the decade after 2010. The X-35 has not made a flying Air Show debut yet, but has been included as a static display in the hangers of Edwards. What a thrill it will be to see this new aircraft take off vertically at a future Edwards AFB Air Show!

	Show attendees inspecting a model of the X-35 inside a hanger.
	Rear view of the X-35. Notice the jagged edges on the landing gear door - a common design now for stealth aircraft.
	A close view of the X-35's cockpit and its advanced avionics. It is unusual to see a fighter plane's canopy open by tilting forward instead of backwards.
	Flags from the nations that are part of the X-35 project. They include USA, United Kingdom, Italy, the Netherlands, Turkey, Canada, Australia, Denmark and Norway.
	An X-35 parked at Lockheed Martin's Palmdale facility (Air Force Plant #42). Photo from the Lockheed Martin website.
	The open doors just behind the X-35's cockpit reveal the vertically mounted jet engine that is only used for vertical takeoffs and landings. This engine is actually powered by the X-35's main engine in the back and is engaged with a big clutch mechanism. Photo from the Lockheed Martin website.
	The large pod-looking object at the bottom rear of the X-35 is actually the rear nozzle of the engine pointed down and is used to direct the thrust downward for takeoff or landing. After takeoff, the nozzle slowly turns up to point back horizontally like all other jet aircraft - a very unique design of the X-35. Photo from the Lockheed Martin website.