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| F-35 Lightning |
F 35 (Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II is the USA’s latest fifth generation, multirole, single engine and single seat fighter jet air craft with the stealth technology which is a product of Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program. The three main models of F 35 Fighter jet are
- F 35A-conventional takeoff and landing
- F 35B-short takeoff and vertical landing
- F 35C-carrier based variant
F 35 first flight was on 15th December 2006. United Kingdom, Australia, Italy, Canada, Norway, Turkey, Netherlands, Norway, Turkey, Israel, and Japan all will equip their air and/or naval forces with the F-35. The F-35 has a maximum speed of over Mach 1.6 with a maximum takeoff weight of 60,000 lb (27,000 kg). F-35 designed to have a low radar cross section primarily due to the shape of the aircraft and the use of stealth material used in construction, including fiber-mat. F-35 will be the first jet fighter that has sensor fusion that combines both radio frequency and IR tracking for continuous target detection and identification in all directions which is shared via MADL to other platforms without compromising low operability. CAT bird avionics test bed for the F-35 program has proved capable of detecting and jamming F-22 radars. The aircraft has been designed for ease of maintenance, with 95% of all field replaceable parts "one deep" where nothing else has to be removed to get to the part, the aircraft uses low-maintenance electro-hydrostatic actuators instead of hydraulic systems and an all-composite skin without the fragile coatings found on earlier stealth aircraft.
F 35 Fighter Jet Description
- Crew: 1
- Length: 15.67 m
- Wingspan: 10.7 m
- Height: 4.33 m Wing area: 42.7 m²
- Empty weight: 13,300 kg
- Loaded weight: 22,470 kg
- Max. Takeoff weight: 31,800 kg
- Power plant: 1 × Pratt & Whitney F135 afterburning turbofan
- Maximum speed: Mach 1.6+ [169] (1,200 mph, 1,930 km/h) (Tested to Mach 1.61)
- Range: 1,200 nmi (2,220 km) on internal fuel
- Combat radius: 584 nmi[353] (1,080 km) on internal fuel[354]
- Service ceiling: 18,288 m
- Rate of climb: classified (not publicly available)
- Wing loading: 446 kg/m²
- Thrust/weight: With full fuel: 0.87
Weapons of F 35 Lightening
- Missiles: Air-to-air missiles:
- AIM-120 AMRAAM
- AIM-9X Sidewinder
- IRIS-T
- MBDA Meteor (Pending further funding)[
- JDRADM (after 2020)
- Air-to-surface missiles:
- AGM-154 JSOW
- AGM-158 JASSM
- Brimstone missile
- Joint Air-to-Ground Missile
- Storm Shadow missile
- SOM
- Anti-ship missiles:
- JSM
- Bombs: Mark 84, Mark 83 and Mark 82 GP bombs
- Mk.20 Rock eye II cluster bomb
- Wind Corrected Munitions Dispenser capable
- Pave way-series laser-guided bombs
- Small Diameter Bomb (SDB)
- JDAM-series
- B61 nuclear bomb
