The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is the most expensive weapon in the history of the world. Lockheed Martin promised it would design an aircraft that could do it all: conventional takeoff & landing (CTOL), short takeoff & landing (STOVL), operations from an aircraft carrier, ground attack, dogfighting, bombing, and more. The war corporation promised everything, but came through with nothing more than a pile of heavy, metallic mediocrity.

Why so mediocre?

To begin with, Lockheed Martin (LM) crammed a massive engine into the F-35 in order to attempt to meet its promised performance criteria. This not only took up a lot of room, but it also increased the weight of the plane, disrupted the intended aerodynamics, and caused dangerous problems regarding heat dissipation.

Secondly, to achieve all of its technical promises, LM engineers packed in more wiring, software, and hardware than found in a typical combat aircraft. They had great difficulty arranging all of this equipment, and more equipment led to LM producing an even heavier aircraft. Thus, every time Lockheed Martin attempted to remedy one of the F-35’s many problems, another problem inevitably cropped up because of space constraints and the networked airframe’s very intricacy.

Contrary to war industry claims, the F-35 is “low-observable” at best. It is not stealthy by any means. (The lone, genuine stealth feature on the F-35 is the aircraft’s skin—the materials, coatings, and angled design that make up the plane’s exterior.) War corporations claim that the F-35 is also stealthy because it carries weaponry inside the body of the aircraft. This is true, but misleading. The F-35 only has room for two center bays in which to carry weapons, and each bay has only two weapon stations… [READ MORE]

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