Ultimate Fighter - Lockheed-Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Book Review

By Michael Benolkin

Review

Here is another title that will be of interest to modern combat analysts and contemporary historians. Bill Sweetman has released an interesting look at the latest US fighter - 'Ultimate Fighter - Lockheed-Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter'. As he did in his Stealth book that we reviewed earlier, Bill Sweetman doesn't focus just on the F-35. He starts with the realm of VSTOL fighters and how we got here. He then walks through the JSF competition with the Lockheed-Martin X-35 pitted against the Boeing X-32. The title is crammed with excellent color coverage of the prototypes under development and in test flight.

As with any contemporary aircraft development, nobody waits for the first prototype to fly to test their subsystem. The author provides a nice look at the development aircraft that carried different subsystems aloft, from an F-16 equipped with the stealth engine nozzle to a BAC-111 with the radar, each of the subsystems were ready to roll when the X-35 was brought online.

Even a glimpse is provided of the JSF's new silver bullet, the AIM-9X Sidewinder missile. The author provides a well-written and nicely illustrated develpment roadmap of the JSF and what lies ahead with fighter developments around the world.

The coverage of this informative title is presented as follows:.

• Nobody Planned This
• The War of the X-Planes
• One Size Fits All
• Cyberfighter
• Going Global

This is a nicely compiled and presented title that puts these significant aircraft into perspective and shows how Lockheed continues to dominate the fighter market. This title is highly recommended!

My sincere thanks to Motorbooks International for this review sample!