Joint Strike Fighter: Boeing X-32 Vs Lockheed Martin X-35

Enthusiast Color

by Bill Sweetman

With a high-stakes fly-off slated for the year 2000, rivals Lockheed Martin and Boeing have each employed teams to develop the prototype that will secure the Pentagon's Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) contract. This all-color book provides rare behind-the-scenes coverage of the competitors' designs and their performance features, and explains why the JSF contract winner will most likely go on to produce the bulk of the U.S. fighter fleet in the 21st century. Exclusive photography reveals production lines, test designs in flight, power plants, weaponry, cockpits, and markings. Intended for use by the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, UK Royal Navy, and other allies, the JSF will be a single-engine fighter incorporating supersonic and stealth capabilities with advanced weapons systems and versatility--the navy JSF will be carrier-based, the USMC version will take off and land vertically, and the Air Force fighter will boast long-range capabilities. As in his previous books, author Bill Sweetman uses his superior knowledge of modern aircraft technology to infer the most likely details of still classified information.

96 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1999

Reviews

[Eddy · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting time capsule of a book that shows a perspective of the Joint Strike Fighter, which would later known to be the F-35, from within its prototype stages in 1999.

The book describes the options laid out with the JSF program and its predecessors on the needs that are to be fulfilled with the aircraft and the design options the manufacturers have taken. For the time it is published, the book seems quite accurate on many of the design choices and specifications laid out that Lockheed is trying to fulfill with the F-35.

Its interesting to see how much we already know on the capabilities and promises of the JSF back even before the program was finalized. It is an indictment of the procurement process that more than two decades after the book was published that the same F-35 fighter that is a product of the JSF program still meets two decades old specifications, but it is also a praise on the forward-thinking nature of the program that these specifications are still relevant for the fighter today to fight in the new type of aerial warfare for the US Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, and foreign users abroad.