F-35: The Inside Story of the Lightning II

by Tom Burbage

The inside story of the most expensive and controversial military program in history, as told by those who lived it.

The F-35 has changed allied combat warfare. But by the time it’s completed, it will cost more than the Manhattan Project and the B-2 Stealth Bomber. It has been subject to the most aggressive cyberattacks in history from China, Russia, North Korea, and others. Its stealth technology required nearly 9 million lines of code; NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover required 2.5 million. And it was this close to failure.

F-35 is the only inside look at the most advanced aircraft in the world and the historic project that built it, as told by those who were intimately involved in its design, testing, and production. Based on the authors' personal experience and over 100+ interviews, F-35 pulls back the curtain on one of the most heavily criticized government programs in history from start to the dramatic flights that won Lockheed Martin the contract over Boeing; the debates and decisions over capabilities; feats of software, hardware, and aeronautical engineering that made it possible; how the project survived the Nunn-McCurdy breach; the conflicts among all three branches of the U.S. military, between the eight other allied nation partners, and against spy elements from enemies.

For fans of Skunk Works by Ben Rich and The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes, F-35 will pique the interest of airplane enthusiasts, defense industry insiders, military history aficionados, political junkies, and general nonfiction audiences.

Genres: History, Military Fiction, Aviation, Nonfiction, War, Technology, Military History

Audible Audio

Published July 18, 2023

Reviews

[Joel Toppen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this was outstanding account of the lofty goals, trials, and tribulations of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program. After reading this, I feel like I have a much more complete understanding of what this weapon system is all about. Critics of the project would do well to at least consider the other side of the story. And that’s where I found value in this book. It doesn’t gloss over the cost overruns and difficulties that the the project endured. It explains the whys and what was done to meet and overcome challenges in order to make this weapon system a reality.

[Harrison High · Rating 3 out of 5]

As an F-35 fanboy, I was really looking forward to learning more about the history of the F-35 and its development. While the book did accomplish that task, it did so in a series of vignettes rather than a single cohesive story with a linear timeline. As a result, the author often repeated talking points between chapters, causing me to repeatedly question if I had already read that portion of the book. Overall, I enjoyed learning about the F-35, but think the same information could have been relayed in a much more fluid and concise manner.

[Andrew Balog · Rating 3 out of 5]

Don't get me wrong, I am a fan of the F-35.

But this book gets -1 stars for being such a blatantly obvious and biased PR stunt. Oh look, there's another massive issue with the program - here comes program manager Tom Burbage to the rescue (don't worry, it's not like he's an author of the book)! Or so many other big issues with the program that were just glossed over like they didn't happen or were just little bumps in the road. Like I said, I'm a fan of the F-35. But this was just naked propaganda to make the program managers look good.

The book gets another star taken off for seemingly not going through a review or editing process by the writers or publisher. I felt like I saw the same few sentences copy and pasted in about 7 or 8 chapters, and there was no obvious flow to the story. It seemed like they were making a half-hearted attempt to talk about the program chronologically, but then you would read about the same events in multiple chapters. It was all over the place. Not to mention, the writing style and quotes were so obviously coded in political, neutral speech. You would read a 7 or 8 sentence quote from a general or program manager, and would have no idea what any of it meant. You could tell the quotes were very planned, strategic quotes that conveyed a murky meaning with a lot of words.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read the book and judged it by its cover. I was expecting a book more similar to Dan Hampton’s Viper Pilot and instead this book was more about the many challenges to make the F-35 Lightning II successful and make it to production and now with more than 1,000 operational aircraft in 9 partner countries and with more slated to come on board.

Knowing this my focus while reading the book shifted to what business lessons could I learn from reading this book and there are many.

Some quotes from pages I marked while reading: 1) “Innovation doesn’t just happen, no less in aviation than in any other field of engineering.” 2) data can be helpful and you need a way to analyze and integrate the data 3) just keep showing up 4) if you need to deliver bad news to your boss after done yelling at you say something like, “You can shout, you can scream, you can call me anything you want but I’m not backing down because this is the right thing to do.”

There are many other things that can be applied too like 1) how to successfully work with and lead global teams 2) getting buy-in from multiple stakeholders 3) playing the political games necessary for success 4) budgeting and forecasting 5) innovation 6) attack teams for resolving problems like Manhattan Project style problem resolution 7) finding and hiring the right people for the job and 8) developing rapport and interpersonal skills.

I can recommend this book thought it is dense and a slow read. It does have a few stories about the actual flying of the plane too though I was hoping for more.

[Sparky Shelton · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hagiographic, limited in scope, and dismissive of all criticism. Some interesting insights, but it's basically a 600 page Lockheed Martin Press Release (derogatory)

[Mike · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love books and airplanes. And books about airplanes. Especially stories about those who fly them. When browsing at the bookstore, I came across this book about the F-35. I’m already a bit biased against the plane, having followed its development over the last 20 years. I knew that the book would be a puff piece, as it is written by the project leaders of the program. What I found is a lot of hand waving away issues and a lot of cheerleading that the plane exists.

The book isn’t about those who flew or tested the aircraft. It is really about project management at Lockheed and how they dealt with the Pentagon. As a project manager myself, it is difficult to make it exciting to read. There are peeks into the testing and flying, but only glimpses out of the corners of the author’s eye.

The authors will spend 2-3 sentences on a bad outcome, but then spend multiple paragraphs talking about how they saved the day. Even though they were the ones that got it into that situation in the first place. The plane had to go through a multi-year redesign. Bad! But they want to make it a great outcome due to weight savings and better teams. Hackers downloaded multiple terrabytes of data on the plane (the author’s stated value), but the next page they say they have the best cyber security of any program to date. Closing the barn after the horse is out comes to mind here. We get hit over the head with the number of lines of code in the plane, ~11MM. It is a heaping pile of crap, but they say no one has tested like they have previously. Maybe in an aircraft, but as Silicon Valley about testing real time systems with that size of code base. They make excuses as to the poor code quality: The authors do admit they screwed the software engineers (both coders and testers) to give more money to the aircraft structure people. Oh, how it came back to bite them, as the plane is a lot of software. It becomes quite apparent the authors didn’t have a good grasp as to how to develop a complex software system or that it takes time to shake out.

The authors don’t go into just how limited the airframe truly is. It is another hand waving away the design decisions required to make the Marines happy. The F-35B is deficient in those areas that should be deemed important: Fuel, internal weapon storage & a gun(!). All in the name of building a plane that can sprint supersonic and then land vertically. Hey, a pilot likes the F-35C as it has more of all the things the B model lacks! The US Air Force is told to deal with the limitations. A Navy admiral says in the book this would be the last time the Marines are in charge of any joint aircraft project. The Air Force & Navy can agree on a lot, but the Marines have to have super unique toys to justify their role. Oh, one thing buried in here is the fact the three versions diverge enough that many components and assemblies are not shared, as once envisioned.

It speaks volumes to me the author was annoyed with the late, great Pierre Sprey. Mr. Sprey was the father of the F-16 & A-10. He also was a hard hitting critic in the Pentagon who went after project waste. He would say aircraft such as the F-15 were “gold plated.” ie lots of money for nothing. What pained others is he was nearly aways right, just not very diplomatic in his delivery. The F-35 program was forced to succeed, as it is an export program to give allies a taste of stealth. But back to limitations, it doesn’t have all aspect stealth (check out the engine nozzle & compare it to the F-22 or F-117). Mr. Sprey went to town on the F-35 as there was a lot of problems to point out. Except the authors wanted to keep the expensive toy moving forward & the Pentagon was going along with it as there wasn’t a plan B (just ask the Navy what they’ll be doing). An aircraft focused on a single clear mission will be easier to develop and more effective on the battlefield.

The authors also pound on the table more than 1000 of the planes have been delivered. Everything is stated as “the best,” “the most rigorous,” etc of any program, which is like Microsoft saying “Windows 11 is the most secure Windows ever” (saw in a Dell ad today). Doesn’t mean its any good.

I will have to wait until a more critical history of the plane to learn its real challenges & deficiencies. The author’s are proud the F-35 is replacing a large number of airframes around the world. It can’t replace an A-10, the F-35 is too fast and doesn’t have enough hardpoints. F-16’s continue to be improved and cost a lot less. Oh, the author’s in claiming the large number of airframes built is unprecedented. They conveniently forget the F-4 Phantom II. In the end the book only shows what the project managers want the world to hear and to not truly justify why so much money is being spent on the program.

[Maverick Mo · Rating 4 out of 5]

【2024BOOK06】During this year's Bethpage Air Show, the commentator recommended this book published last year, "F-35: The Inside Story of the Lightning II." This book answered a long-standing question of mine: why does the U.S. need to develop the F-35 when it already has the F-22, even though the F-35 does not seem to be the top by some standards? After reading the entire book, I feel that it is more of a book on engineering project management than a book on the military—an executive master's degree in complex project management at Queensland University of Technology indeed uses the F-35 project as a case study. This book systematically demonstrates, under the Western military, industrial, and political system, how the F-35 ultimately became one of the most lethal fighter jets in the world today after navigating through project bidding, commercial competition, political compromises, inter-service rivalry (so it's the same everywhere—the Navy's deadliest enemies are its own nation's Air Force and Marine Corps fighting for the budget 😂), and multiple crises in budgeting, public relations, and project management.

While reading this book, I shared a video on Bilibili. The video was taken by the driver who took me to last year's air show when an F-35B demonstrated its hover capability. This video received a very interesting comment: "What's the use?" Well, let's just say, as the most expensive weapon platform in human history (with the total lifetime cost of all F-35s estimated at $1.5-2 trillion), developed collaboratively by the top military-industrial enterprises of nine countries and equipped with software systems containing over 9 million lines of code per aircraft, it probably should have some use, right? 😂

【2024年的第6本书】今年看贝斯佩奇航展的时候，听到现场解说推荐了这本去年出版的《F-35: The Inside Story of the Lightning II》。这本书回答了我长久以来的一个疑问：为什么美国在拥有了F-22之后，还需要开发部分指标看上去并不顶尖的F-35。读完整本书之后，我感觉与其说它是一本军事类书籍，不如说它是一本工程项目管理类书籍——昆士兰理工大学的“复杂项目管理”硕士课程确实把F-35的开发作为研究案例——这本书系统地展示了，在欧美体制下，F-35是如何穿越项目竞标、商业竞争、政治博弈，军种互撕（所以各国都一样是吗，海军最大的对手是抢预算的自家空军和陆战队😂），以及预算、公关、和项目管理的重重危机，最终成为目前世界上最强大的战斗机之一的。在读这本书期间我在B站分享了去年送我去看航展的司机师傅在航展现场拍摄的F-35B展示悬停能力的视频。这个视频得到了一句非常好的评价——“有毛用”。Well，咱就是说，作为人类历史上最昂贵的武器平台（所有的F-35加起来全生命周期成本预计1.5-2万亿美元），由九个国家最顶尖的军工企业联合开发，单机装载了9百多万行代码的软件系统，它大概可能应该也许还是有点用的吧😂。

[Gregory Eakins · Rating 2 out of 5]

To survive in the face of modern defenses, an aircraft must become . . . nonexistent. Invisible. Transparent, not just to radar, but to infrared vision, and to other, passive detectors, which listen for an attacker’s communications and radars.

The F-35 is one of the most incredible technical feats in aviation history. Combined with my love for aviation, F-35: The Inside Story of the Lightning II seemed like a natural read.

F-35 succeeds in telling you everything you already know about the planes technical and tactical abilities, and little of value outside of that. The bias probably comes from Tom Burbage, who was the manager of the project, and the necessarily limitations of talking around classified information and capabilities. So what you end up with is a bullet point list of what you'd find in news stories and brochures.

So how else do you fill out a nearly 600 page book? Politics. Funding. International agreements. All of the management drama that nobody cares about except the politicians and money changers.

And what of all the controversy surrounding the development? The 2 trillion dollar price tag? The $100 million price tag per plane? Is air superiority even a relevant goal with the F-22 and a threat environment where there are few, if any, countries with a capable air-to-air capability? If F-35 was supposed to replace 14 planes, why are we still flying the A-10, F/A-18, F-15, and all the others it is replacing? Unfortunately, hard questions are not brought up, and any opposition positions are quickly dismissed.

I think that having 3 authors was a disservice - as the narrative (if you can call it one) does not flow well, and the same information is frequently repeated almost verbatim. All of the exciting stuff gets thrown down in the first two chapters, and then you're in for a drudge of politics and vagueness. You won't find much here you wouldn't find in a Wiki article or official press releases.

[Ken Neubeck · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was not able to find this book in any of the libraries in my area, so I used my Barnes and Nobles gift card to purchase it. It was pretty expensive at $40. Four authors are listed, but the book needed an experienced editor to edit the material to make the storytelling flow a lot better. The photos were interesting but needed more details to make them more interesting. Some photos were self-serving. The book generally explained the politics and some of the design features of the F-35 but as most people who know a bit about the aircraft, there were a lot of challenges and issues that impacted the program and had to be solved. That was not covered at all. A bit of honest reflection about the challenges of the F-35 design would have made this a better book. There was lot of name dropping throughout this book that impeded the flow of reading and this added nothing.

Quite frankly, there is nothing exciting or captivating about this book. It reads like a dry program document.

[Jeff O'Byrne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Foundational Program

Incredible story of the F-35, its current fleet of 1,000 fighters flying for three U. S. Services and nine other nations; its fusional abilities both tactical and operational. But even more important it is a story of engineering management at the highest level ever attained in the history of civilization. The ability to cycle so many engineers and managers through an effort of this complexity has generated a body of knowledge that will form the upcoming century of U. S. and Western industrial hegemony.

[John O'connor · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an interesting review of the development of the F-35 Lightning II. The complexity of a project this large is mind boggling, and it’s interesting to learn about how a multinational project that cost trillions (!) of dollars and decades managed to more or less produce what it set out to - a mass scale 5th generation stealth aircraft that can basically replaces a dozen or so older aircraft types. I am going to throw a random aside in here that maybe this is why the US doesn’t have nationalized healthcare, but that is kind of BS because every other western nation participating in the project does. If you want your complicate project to see simple, check this book out.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book did a good job of giving the perspective of the project of the F-35. It's right up there with the largest and most complex projects ever. Not only is the F-35 a plane for the Air Force, Navy, and Marines, but also for a number of allied nations, and they were all involved in the development. Keeping everyone onboard and happy must have been a nightmare.

The book also did sell me on having one plane for all three services. The F-35B (STOVL version) alone can change the power dynamics of the world by giving countries without dedicated carriers the equivalent of having a carrier.

[Angelo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very thorough, and containing a lot of very interesting tidbits. I did not really like the political twists and turns, although I absolutely understand that these are just the workings of the machine for such a complex best. This does make it read like a political procedural.
I had hoped for a read as entertaining as Skunk Works, but this one is a lot dryer. Still recommended if you enjoy the tale of a huuuuuge engineering project.

[Blake · Rating 3 out of 5]

A thorough history of the need, creation, development, and production of the F-35.
The first 1/3 or so was very interesting to me -- it focused on how the F-35 was picked, the tradeoffs, primary obstacles, and its strength and weaknesses. Then the rest of the book was much too detailed to be interesting to me - politics, issues with production, budgeting, etc. I should have just stopped after the first third.

[Brett Boby · Rating 1 out of 5]

poorly written propaganda peice.
fundamentally I dont think you can give this book anything higher than a one or two stars, its timeline and structure make what little actually interesting information in the book, overly complicated to ingest.
for example; why is the first non boardroom pitch chapter, start in the late 90's finishing on effectively 9/11, then the next chapter starts during the 20's talking about some of the more resent sales deals.

[Tammy · Rating 4 out of 5]

F-35 A history of daunting challenges and successes

As a person who worked on the program for over 20 years I found the book provides a excellent and comprehensive review of the daunting technical, political, organizational challenges as well as the successes of one of the largest DoD programs in history.

[Josh Skogman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed reading this but probably liked it even more because of my interest in military aircraft. One thing I found interesting (and not expecting) were the parts of the book that could be applied to any mega project that a team might undertake.

[Kevin Postlewaite · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book on a complicated program. Technology, politics, military aviation.

[Michael Woods · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad, not great. Very informative

[Steven · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too much fluff. This book reads more like a travel log and lists a bunch of sequential events rather than was is important and what is interesting.

[Gregg · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good run down. More of complex project management than its counterpart on the history of the osprey. Worth a read for all military folks.

[Jeremy · Rating 3 out of 5]

DNF. First two or three chapters are amazing then gets a little slow.

[Jesus · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found many parts of this book to be interesting. I guess I unfairly hoped this book would be like top gun. The first chapter had me hooked as it puts you in the pilots seat of the f-35. The rest of the book delves into the trouble lockheed and martin has faced throughout the f-35 program.

I fell in love with the f-35 the first time I saw it at an air show, but this book gets very technical and political. I think this book caters more to engineers or those who are career military. I learned a lot about the tenacity of those at l&m but even for an aviation enthusiast like myself, this book was a bit too dense.

Lastly the guy who does the audiobook reading sounds like zapp brannigan which I enjoyed.

[David Farrell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Illustrates how a complex multinational defense acquisition can span concept, development, production, deployment and decades‑long sustainment - highlighting the intricate lifecycle management, cost escalation and capability evolution inherent in major weapons systems.