It’s official!
I had no idea we were making a new fighter. I thought the F-22 Rapter was the latest one.
i thought F-35 and F-22 are develop at the same time.
I dont think the UK will be calling it the Lightning, there was only 1 of them for us:
http://www.thunder-and-lightnings.co.uk/lightning/index.html
Although the statement on the first page has been proved wrong.
The F-22 is an air superiority fighter, with secondary ground attack capability. At I think $100M a piece, they are far too few and expensive to risk in air support…
The F-35 was designed to be a cheaper alternative, much the same way the F-16 was developed to augment the more expensive and complex F-15…
edit
You know, it’s kind of funny, but Boeing also submitted an aircraft design (X-32) to compete for the lucrative contract, and at the time, possibly its survival. I saw this on a PBS program, where it was erroneously reported that the Boeing version had won.
I said no way, that thing is way to goddamn Fugly to win the contract!!
The Boeing version looks like a pregnant F-22! Maybe they chose the name Lightning II because both Britain and the U.S. have had aircraft with that name?
The Boeing version was pants to say the least – it could either hover or supercruise, depending on the shape of the air intake, but never managed to do both without modification if I remember correctly.
Curses! They sneaked this past me! I don’t know… you take a few days off sick from work (following a car accident - nothing major) and thus separated from the work Janes Defence Weekly and AvWeek access, and they go and name the JSF.
I don’t know. I reckon they’ll go with “Lightning GR Mk 1” or “Lightning FA Mk 1” just to maintain a degree of commonality. It wouldn’t be the first US built aircraft the RAF has flown as a “Lightning” after all (P-38). On the one hand it’d be a shame to desecrate the name borne by the EE Lightning, but on the other, it’s nice to keep the old names alive. Some are too sacred to touch however. Not sure Lightning is quite at that status in the national psyche.
So true, imagen the outrage if they called it the F-35 Spitfire II!
Bah! looks like a stripped pelican to me!