Video of the F-35's first combat mission off the Essex

[Will Collier]

ztirffritz wrote:
There is a really good NOVA episode about the competition between the two X planes. It spends quite a bit of time on the VTOL models used by the competing parties.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/xplanes/about.html

https://youtu.be/Y_WPLeDmU6o

I was working in a USAF fighter squadron when that competition was going on. Aviation Week published a two-page spread showing both prototypes side by side on the ramp out at Edwards, and somebody laid it out on the ops desk. Every single pilot who walked by there would look at the pictures, point at the Boeing jet and say, "I wouldn't fly that ugly POS."

I should have bought Lockheed stock that day.