[BITList] F 35B

[John Feltham]

By Evan Ackerman
4:02PM on Nov 7, 2011

Watch the F-35B do things that the Harrier did 50 years back!



The Marines' version of Lockheed Martin's F-35 can take off, hover in mid-air, and land vertically. But it's not a helicopter, it's a supersonic jet fighter, albeit one with some absolutely unreal capabilities.

The F-35B has just finished flight testing aboard the USS Wasp off the coast of Virginia. The Wasp may look like an aircraft carrier, but it doesn't have a launch catapult or arrestor gear. This aircraft, however, cares not a jot for such trappings, and by swiveling its main engine downwards and engaging a giant fan just behind the cockpit, it can provide enough thrust to hover and land vertically. When fully loaded, the F-35B can't quite lift off vertically, but its swiveling engine and fan augment its lift enough that it can take off in an extraordinarily short distance. See all of these tricks for yourself in the video below.

On a side note, this incredibly futuristic capability puts us just about on par with what the Brits had going on back in the 1960s (!) in the form of the Harrier Jump Jet. That's half a century ago, if you're counting. U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Ki86x1WKPmE




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