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Design and Development of the F-35 Lightning II
Tylin Waters
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Abstract
This document is intended to help engineering students and new engineers,
particularly electrical, mechanical, software, and aerospace engineers by illustrating the
external factors such as budget changes, politics (both internal and external), changing
design specification, and deadlines that engineers will face when working on large
projects, especially those with government funding. It will cover a brief history of the F-
35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter Program, the technical specifications of the plane, the
controversy that has surrounded the project, and the expectation place on engineers in
such positions.
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Introduction
The F-35 Lightning II fighter jet, named after the legendary WWII fighter, the P-38
Lightning, has had one of the most turbulent and controversial design and development
phases of any government funded engineering projects ever attempted. It has gone
over budget on several occasions, undergone complete refits and redesigns, and has
been panned by some as being inferior to the very jets it is meant to replace. It has
been in development for decades but has only recently come into active service for the
military.
Figure 1 - F-35B variant
https://www.flickr.com/photos/lockheedmartin/38218765112/in/album-
72157601438420763/
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A Brief History of the F-35
The F-35 Lightning II is the fighter jet developed by Lockheed Martin. It is
classified as a 5th generation fighter which means it is capable of “advanced stealth,
extreme performance, information fusion, and advanced sustainment.” While in previous
generations of aircraft, stealth capabilities were limited to bombers and attack planes
like the B-2 Spirit or F-117 Nighthawk, 5th generation planes like the F-35 and F-22
Raptor combine advanced stealth with the ability to engage in air-to-air combat. It has
been one of the most ambitious military projects even undertaken and represents a
technological quantum leap over its predecessors.
In previous generations of fighter aircraft, dating all the way back to World War I,
different types of planes were built specially for each branch of the military. The Navy,
for example, has utilized the F-14 Tomcat and F/A-18 Hornet which are specifically
designed to land on aircraft carriers. They achieve takeoff via a literal catapult mounted
to the runway that rapidly accelerates the plane and launches it into the air. In order to
land, jets approach the carrier with a hook hanging off the back of the fuselage and use
it to snag one of a series of cables laid across the runway which arrests the plane’s
forward inertia, allowing it to make a quicker stop. Other specialized planes, such as the
British made AV-8A Harrier Jump Jets, are capable of vertical/short landing and takeoff
(V/STOL) via rotatable jet nozzles.
The F-35 is the first of its kind in that it was designed to replace current
generations of fighter and attack planes across all branches of the military. It is the
result of Department of Defense (DOD) Joint Strike Fighter program which was
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introduced in late 1980s. Proposed aircraft designs were submitted by several
contractors including Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, and McDonnell
Douglas. From those original proposals, Boeing and Lockheed Martin were selected to
build prototypes for the program. Boeing’s design, dubbed the X-32, and Lockheed
Martin’s prototype, the X-35 were tested and compared for over a year from 2000 to
2001. In October of 2001 it was announced that Lockheed Martin would develop the
Joint Strike Fighter, now christened the F-35, in conjunction with Northrop Grumman
and BAE, a British based aerospace contractor (1). The F-35As are designed for
conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL) and are set to replace the F-16 Fighting
Falcons and A-10 Thunderbolt IIs for the Air Force. The F-35Bs are capable of short
takeoff and vertical landing (STOVL) and will replace current Marine Corps F/A-18
Hornets and AV-8B Harriers. Finally, the F-35Cs are made for catapult-assisted takeoff
but arrested recovery (CATOBAR) for aircraft carriers and will replace the current Naval
fleet of F/A-18s (2).
The F-35 program is an international project and has received support and
funding from several countries and be replacing planes and components from those
countries as well. There are nine partnering countries in total, Australia, Canada,
Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United
States. In addition to these partners, several countries are purchasing F-35 for their own
militaries as foreign military sales customers including Israel, Japan, the Republic of
Korea, Belgium, and Finland (2).
Specification
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The if F-35 is one of the most ambitious engineering projects undertaken by a
government contract. Aside from the three variants for the different branches of the
military, the F-35 represents a quantum leap over previous generations of fighters.
While the United States’ other 5th generation fighter, the F-22 Raptor, is an
improvement over 4th generation fighters like the F-15 Eagle, F-16, and F/A-18 while
incorporating advanced stealth capabilities, the F-35 represents a complete revamping
of the way modern fighter planes are designed to engage in combat (2).
One of the key features of the F-35 is the visor system. Most pilots receive
tactical information from their heads-up display (HUD), a glass display mounted inside
the cockpit. The HUD provides information on altitude, airspeed, weapon/combat
systems, GPS, and friend-or-foe trackers. The F-35 however has no HUD; instead it
uses what is called a Helmet-Mounted Display System (HMDS). On these highly
advance helmet systems is mounted a bubbled visor that project all this data right in
front of the eyes of the pilot which means he/she does not have to look at a singular
spot in the cockpit to receive the relevant information.
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Figure 2 - F-35 Gen III Helmet-Mounted Display System (HMDS) -
https://cdn.aviationtoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/f-35ed.jpg
The primary feature of the HMDS however is not just making HUD information
more accessible, but in giving the pilot 360-degree visual data. The visor is linked to a
real-time feed from several cameras mounted across the body of the jet, allowing pilots
to “look straight through the plane” and see locations of friendly and enemy forces. This
also means pilots are no longer required to point the nose of the jet at an enemy to
achieve missile lock, they can now simply look at the target to receive lock and fire. The
HDMS fetches a $400,000 price tag and are 3D molded to each individual pilot (3).
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Figure 3 - Visual from HMDS -
https://cdn.aviationtoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/f35greened.jpg
What truly sets the F-35 apart from other fighters is not the helmet system or the
different variations but is mobile sensor package. All of the F-35’s sensor systems are
designed to share and receive combat data to and from other aircraft as well as ground-
based sensors; it also combines all of the information from each of its sensory suites
including infrared, radar, electronic warfare systems, and Doppler radar. With previous
fighter jets, pilots required constant communication with other pilots and ground-based
communications to verify locations of targets, objectives, and friendly forces. They were
also required to sift through and interpret all this information on the fly (literally) while
flying at the speed of sound. The sensory suite for the F-35 on the other hand collates
and interprets all this information on its own and projects the results to the visor. If the
information is regarding unknown forces, it will also project how confident it is in the
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inspiration while continuously cross referencing the results with other sensory stations in
order to increase accuracy (4).
Controversies in Development
The development of the Lightning II has been fraught with controversy ranging
from budget, time of delivery, performance, and specifications. It has been delayed
several times and continued to face speed bumps during its design phase.
One major theme across the development of the F-35 has been the budget,
specifically the fact that it has gone over the originally proposed budget several times
throughout the development phase. The original budget was set at around $200 billion
for 2,457 planes but that figure it now at about $400 billion (7). This is due in large part
to the F-35 being such a quantum leap over any jet built up to this point in terms of
overall technology and capabilities in terms of flight avionics, stealth flight, and payload.
Figure 4 – Cost of fighter jet models (in millions)
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Regarding Fig. 1, while the F-22 costs more than the F-35 per unit, there are
significantly more F-35s proposed as they are meant to replace the bulk of the Air
Force, Marines, and Navy’s current fighters (8).
There have also been questions as to whether the F-35 is even better than the
planes it was designed to replace. In early test dogfights, the F-35 was considered by
many to be inferior to the F-16 (although this can possibly be attributed to the notion
that the pilots were flying the F-35s the same way they would fly an F-16 which is not
how they were designed to fight).
Every single current generation (also known as 4th generation) fighter, including
the F-16, F/A-18, and even the renowned F-15, were originally introduced in the 1970’s
when air-to-air combat was still fought with traditional dogfighting tactics. The F-35 was
not designed to engage in close quarter dogfights, but rather to detect enemy targets
and fire at them from several miles away. During initial test combat scenarios in 2015,
the F-35 reportedly lost to the older F-16 and F-15 fighters. For many, this was proof
that the F-35 was inferior and that the US government was spending an inordinate
amount of money for a less effective fighter design. While there were certainly design
flaws regarding manual control of the aircraft and lessened maneuverability and thrust
that would need to be addresses, the issue wasn’t so much with the flaws of the fighter
itself, but rather pilots trying to fly it like an older generation jet. In a more recent training
exercise in which the test pilots have had considerably more time to familiarize
themselves with the niches of the system, the F-35 recorded a 20:1 kill ratio against the
4th generation fighters (5).
Effect on Designers and Engineers
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Logistics
Because of the fluid nature of the project, engineers have been continually asked
to change their designs to meet an altered need or to fix existing problems. The other
(and most significant) challenge facing the engineers was that many of the features
proposed in the design for the F-35 were brand new and had never been attempted
before.
The constant delays and budget increases and cuts in a project like this may also
lead to a great deal of stress, particularly when engineers must remain committed to
such a large project far longer than they were initially counting on. Although in the case
of the F-35, the budget has increased over time, many departments have had their own
budgets cut and are expected to make the same level of progress with fewer resources.
Automation
Because of the highly automated nature of the F-35, engineers were initially
asked to create a system that made automatic adjustments during maneuvers. While
these adjustments are extremely useful in normal flying conditions, it prevented pilots
from having as much control as they needed for extreme maneuvers during combat
simulations. The pilots felt as though the planes were fighting them and that they were
unable to push their jets to the limit that is often required in air-to-air combat. As a
result, the designing engineers were asked to alter the computerized system in the jets
to allow more control for the pilots while still maintaining the necessary automation (5).
Helmet/Visor System
While the United States’ other 5th generation fighter, the F-22, is largely an
improved version of the 4th generation fighters with added stealth capabilities, the F-35
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had to be designed largely from the ground up, particularly with its visor and sensory
communications systems. One of the earliest issues was a mechanical hardware
problem: the weight of the helmet. Because all the avionics that are normally spread
across and entire dashboard now needed to be displayed on a helmet mount, there was
an understandable increase in hardware which resulted in a heavier helmet. This may
seem minor, but it meant that during high-g turns it seriously weighed down the pilots’
heads and had serious potential for injury. The helmets would need to be redesigned to
be lighter without sacrificing their computing power (3).
The next hurdle that the engineers needed to solve was a software related issue.
Since all the information a pilot could see while wearing the HDMS was projected via
the visor, any bug posed significant problems and created a potentially life-threatening
risk for the pilot. The most substantial glitches in the early generations were a tendency
of the visual display to jitter when the plane experience turbulence, a video latency
which resulted in motion sickness and delayed reaction time, and a green glow which
would “leak” into the cockpit. This last issue was particularly dangerous as it caused a
distinct glare on the canopy which severely inhibited the pilot’s sight during night flying.
These bugs cause so much concern from the developers of the program that BAE
Systems was asked to design their own helmet design as a backup in case the original
design from Rockwell Collins couldn’t meet expectations. The software engineers were
able to improve the system in later generations of the helmet, but as it is a brand-new
type of technology, tweak and various other changed will continue to be implemented
(6).
Coordination with Other Countries and Contractors
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The Joint Strike Fighter has been a colossal undertaking and, like most
large government contracts, has involved many different civilian contractors. The lead
contractor is, of course, Lockheed Martin with the principle partners Northrup Grumman,
BAE Systems, and Pratt & Whitney. Northrup Grumman oversees a large portion of the
fuselage, stealth systems, and logistics. BAE systems also contribute to the fuselage
while also designing the STOVL system. Pratt & Whitney build the F-35’s engine, which
is the largest of its kind ever built. In total, nearly 200,000 people have been involved in
its development (1). What all this means it that, while the project is divided up amongst
several different companies, they must all meet the exact needs of the prime developer
(Lockheed Martin) and work seamlessly together or the entire program would fall apart.
If one system does not work as expected, it can cause a domino effect and place the
entire project on hold until it is fixed. In the case of the previously mentioned issues with
the visor system, and entire subcontractor project may potentially be replaced if it is not
in line with specifications.
Conclusion
The F-35 Lightning II has certainly faced its share of speed bumps during its long
and strenuous development, and only now that it is finally entering active service are the
advancements of its design made apparent. With technology advancing at an
exponential rate, the methods used to complete a project may become obsolete while it
is still being developed. The F-35 serves as a sort of microcosm of the challenges faced
by engineers when developing new technology. There is no disputing that it is the most
advanced aircraft ever built. Whether or not it was worth the cost, only the future can
tell.
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References
1. F-35 Lightning II, www.f35.com/.
2. Program, F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. “F-35 Lightning II Program.” JSF.mil > History
> F-35 Acquisition, www.jsf.mil/.
3. Zazulia, Nick. “F-35: Under the Helmet of the World's Most Advanced Fighter.”
Avionics, Avionics, 4 Sept. 2018, www.aviationtoday.com/2018/08/24/f-35-
helmet-worlds-advanced-fighter/.
4. Zazulia, Nick. “F-35 Data Fusion: How the Smartest Fighter Shares What It
Sees.” Avionics, Avionics, 4 Sept. 2018, www.aviationtoday.com/2018/09/04/f-
35-data-fusion/.
5. Lockie, Alex. “Here's Why the F-35 Once Lost to F-16s, and How It Made a
Stunning Comeback.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 18 Apr. 2017,
www.businessinsider.com/f-35-vs-f-16-15-18-lost-beaten-flatley-comeback-2017-
4.
6. Davenport, Christian. “Meet the Most Fascinating Part of the F-35: The $400,000
Helmet.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 1 Apr. 2015,
www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2015/04/01/meet-the-most-
fascinating-part-of-the-f-35-the-400000-helmet/?utm_term=.26e96a23a2de.
7. Cohen, Zachary. “The F-35: Is It Worth the Cost? - CNNPolitics.” CNN, Cable
News Network, 16 July 2015, www.cnn.com/2015/07/16/politics/f-35-jsf-
operational-costs/index.html.
8. Mizokami, Kyle. “This Chart Explains How Crazy-Expensive Fighter Jets Have
Gotten.” Popular Mechanics, Popular Mechanics, 14 Nov. 2017,
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www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/news/a25678/the-cost-of-new-
fighters-keeps-going-up-up-up/.