F-35 Lightning II

The Future Is Flying

December 15, 2006: The F-35 Lightning II lifts into the skies for the first time. Chief Test Pilot Jon Beesley returns from the flight with a
thumbs up and a big grin, exclaiming praise for an aircraft that flew “beautifully.” A new era in military aviation begins. Today, the first F-35
continues to validate the aircraft’s design while demonstrating uncommon reliability.
As the F-35 was beginning flight tests, another aircraft took to the air. The Cooperative Avionics Test Bed (CATBird), a highly modified 737,
was developed to validate the Lightning II’s powerful avionics suite. The CATBird demonstrates the fighter’s ability to collect data from
multiple sensors and fuse it into a coherent situational awareness display in a dynamic airborne environment.

Defining the 5TH Generation Fighter

The F-35 calls for an entirely new way of thinking about fighter capabilities. By integrating a wealth
of different capabilities, the fighter brings a quantum leap in lethality and survivability. It offers
sharply enhanced expeditionary capability through a more reliable, highly maintainable aircraft and robust airframe design. These attributes
can be realized only through a design created from the ground up to develop the world’s most capable multirole fighter.
Advanced Stealth
With embedded antennas, aligned edges, internal weapons and fuel, and special coatings and materials, the F-35 uses stealth to pick and
choose engagements while remaining virtually undetected by enemy defense systems.
Information Fusion
Advanced integrated avionics processing data from a variety of onboard and net-enabled, off-board sensors provide the F-35 with true
5TH generation fighter capabilities. The most powerful sensor suite ever to fly on a fighter aircraft brings a seamless real-world, real-time,
360-degree display of the battlespace, with detailed information prioritized to the situation at hand, and allows the F-35 pilot to be a
tactician rather than a technician.
Joint Force Enabler
The F-35 enables air dominance around the clock in any threat environment. Joint and coalition forces can attack any target, any time,
with the freedom to operate anywhere on Day One of a conflict – even amid the most sophisticated and numerically superior threats.
Sustainment –
A Worldwide Commitment
A revolutionary fighter calls for an evolutionary support structure.
Daily operations and support activities account for two-thirds of
a fighter aircraft’s lifetime costs. To dramatically reduce F-35
life-cycle costs while maintaining high aircraft readiness rates,
the team focused on three broad areas of the aircraft’s sustainment.
Autonomic Logistics Global Sustainment (ALGS)
The F-35’s ability to monitor and report its own health
automatically brings critical advantages to the operator. It begins
with a smart and reliable aircraft and ends with an information
infrastructure that continuously captures and analyzes F-35 overall
readiness. Initial ALGS capability is already in place for the first
flight test aircraft.
Worldwide Partnership of Suppliers
The supplier network ensures the F-35 receives efficient
support, anywhere in the world. This includes aircraft operation,
modernized supply chain management, inspections, simulator
facilities, maintenance and field support.
Performance-Based Logistics
This is a long-term arrangement under which the contractor receives
incentives to meet performance requirements. The result: greater
reliability as the operator defines the readiness rates required.
The F-35 Lightning II team has a long-term commitment for a
fighter that will be the mainstay of fleets around the world far into
the 21st century.

Interoperability Joint/Coalition Interoperability

In the battlespace of the
future, information is power.
The F-35 is the first fighter in
history specifically designed to
be a key node in a “system of
systems” – a lethal information
gatherer and transmitter in a Space
vast network. Its tremendous Communications
Aviation and Air Defense Assets
processing power, open
architecture, powerful sensors,
Naval Assets Ground Forces
information fusion and
flexible communications
links make the F-35 an
indispensable tool in future
homeland defense and joint/
coalition warfare scenarios.
More than 90 information-exchange requirements ensure interoperability across
U.S. and coalition forces.
Revolutionary
Manufacturing Concepts
Advanced digital design tools, assembly methods and highly
accurate manufacturing machines help the aircraft achieve
unprecedented goals of affordability, quality and assembly speed.
New milling machines, accurate to less than the width of a human
hair, ensure that the F-35’s outer shape is exact and meets its
advanced, all-aspect stealth requirements. Processes for building
the first F-35 already are validating forecasts of faster assembly,
improved quality and reduced costs.

Replacing Legacy Systems With

5TH Generation Capabilities
Born of technologies as revolutionary as the fighter itself, the
F-35 replaces aging legacy aircraft with 5TH generation fighter
capabilities offering unmatched basing flexibility and sharply
enhanced range and persistence. The F-35 achieves its design
objectives using a highly common configuration adapted to meet
the specific missions of the U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps,
as well as the United Kingdom Royal Navy and Royal Air Force.

CV
CTOL STOVL

F-35 LIGHTNING II

F-16

F-117

AWACS

AV-8B

JSTARS

A-10
The F-35 Lightning II combines revolutionary
capabilities of these legacy fighters and systems
F-18
into one 5TH generation multirole fighter.
Exceptional Technology Team
The world’s most experienced aerospace industry leaders are
combining their sophisticated manufacturing, engineering and
technological capabilities to develop the F-35 Lightning II Joint
Strike Fighter (JSF). The extensive fighter aircraft and stealth
technology experience of prime contractor Lockheed Martin is
joined with the expertise of principal industrial partners
Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems, Pratt & Whitney and the
GE Rolls-Royce Fighter Engine Team.
These five aerospace companies have nearly 450 years’ collective
experience and represent unprecedented advancements in supply
chain management, collaboration and technology. While each
company has a unique set of manufacturing contributions, the
team has successfully demonstrated it can produce a world-class
fighter with unmatched accuracy across several time zones
and facilities. The merging of these companies’ advanced
technological capabilities is unparalleled. Together they form
a global team creating the world’s best and only multinational,
multirole 5TH generation fighter.
Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company and government-
operated JSF Program Office deliver the F-35 and its support
systems. This team leads the core industrial team and produces
the F-35 forward fuselage and wings. Final assembly of the F-35
takes place at Lockheed Martin in Fort Worth, Texas.
Northrop Grumman brings extensive experience in carrier
aircraft and expertise in low-observable/stealth technology. In
addition to providing support in logistics, sustainment, modeling,
simulation and mission planning, Northrop Grumman provides:
• Design and integration of the center fuselage
• Mission systems software components
• Ground and flight test support
• Fire control radar
• Electro-optical distributed aperture system
• Integrated communications, navigation and
identification avionics suite
BAE Systems brings a rich heritage of capabilities to the JSF
program, including short takeoff and vertical landing experience,
advanced lean manufacturing, flight testing and air system
sustainment. In both the United Kingdom and the United States,
BAE designs and develops:
• Aft fuselage and empennage
• Electronic warfare systems
• Vehicle management computer
• Navigation and identification modules
• Pilot side-stick controller and throttle
BAE Systems is also responsible for the fuel, crew escape,
life-support, Prognostics and Health Management systems and
the U.K.’s Future Carrier F-35 integration support.
Propulsion: A Joint
Commitment to Power
The Pratt & Whitney (F135) and the GE Rolls-Royce (F136)
Fighter Engine Team (FET) engines are physically and
functionally interchangeable across all F-35 aircraft
and their autonomic logistics systems. Both engines bring
key benefits to this 5TH generation fighter.
• Cooperative development in which common propulsion system
components are used to minimize development costs
• Wide range of options to meet individual customer requirements
• Sharing of propulsion support equipment to simplify
maintenance of either engine

F-35A CTOL F-35B STOVL F-35C CV

Span . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 ft / 10.67 m
Length . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51.4 ft / 15.67 m
Wing area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 460 ft2 / 42.7 m2
Combat radius (internal fuel) >590 n.mi / 1,093 km
Range (internal fuel) . . ~1,200 n.mi / 2,222 km
Span . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 ft / 10.67 m
Length . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51.2 ft / 15.61 m
Wing area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 460 ft2 / 42.7 m2
Combat radius (internal fuel) >450 n.mi / 833 km
Range (internal fuel) . . . ~ 900 n.mi / 1,667 km
Span . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 ft / 13.11 m
Length . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51.4 ft / 15.67 m
Wing area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 668 ft2 / 62.06 m2
Combat radius (internal fuel) >600 n.mi / 1,111 km
Range (internal fuel) . . >1,200 n.mi / 2,222 km
A New Paradigm. A New Way of
Thinking. A New Era.
Every generation of fighter aircraft brings greater strengths and
performance improvements. But the F-35 goes far beyond that – so
far that it will redefine tactical air concepts. These are some
responses inevitably expressed by those who have closely followed
the development of the F-35 and its global support structure:
• A 5TH generation fighter for the world’s air forces
• Quantum leap in combat capability
• Speed, precision and stealth
• Revolutionizing coalition warfare

The F-35B short takeoff/vertical landing (STOVL) variant allows

operations from amphibious ships and shore-based expeditionary sites
as it deploys close to the battle.

The F-35A conventional takeoff and landing

(CTOL) variant is a multirole, supersonic, stealth
fighter that has extraordinary acceleration and
9-g maneuverability with F-16-like agility.

The F-35C carrier variant (CV) offers

first-day-of-the-war capability for the U.S. Navy. It
is an all-weather, long-range, supersonic fighter that
strikes from the sea with stealth. Commonality with
the F-35A and F-35B equals affordability.
LOCKHEED MARTIN
NORTHROP GRUMMAN • BAE SYSTEMS
PRATT & WHITNEY • GE ROLLS-ROYCE FIGHTER ENGINE TEAM

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