Inquiring minds want to know
Posted on 11/30/2016 5:04:25 AM PST by sukhoi-30mki
The F-35B never was designed for vertical take-off even when not loaded. The Harrier never could either when loaded.
Or you could bury every electric line in the country, provide decent lighting for all highways in the country, or build something like NAWAPA so there would never be another drought west of the Mississippi.....
[if anybody were ever to spend a trillion dollars intelligently, as oppoosed to spending it on bank bailouts or fat-cat-pocket-lining tech like the F35....]
It is landing vertically. Those hatches open to allow the lift fan to operate. The big top one is the air intake for the lift fan and the pair of doors just behind the nose gear are the bottom of it.
“I don’t see the engine nozzle is in the vertical position.”
That is because it is hidden between the panels that are opened up at the bottom of the back end. Those open and the nozzle rotates down between them.
However, as the article states the F-35B is “Short-Take-Off-and-Vertical-Landing Lightning”
Not VTOL. STOVL.
As well as every carrier jet.
“I thought the STOVL concept would limit too much in payload and range”
They already have a big fleet of STOVL aircraft and they had to replace them with something. On their amphibian ships it is STOVL or nothing.
Scale models were deployed over a local test site, with less than desirable results. Nearly 40 years of development has managed marginal improvements in flight characteristics.
That’s very interesting, thank you !
Now the photo makes sense, and my joking comment seems silly .. lol
Inquiring minds want to know
ya dont need stealth to be a bombtruck
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