Saddo 4.
This is how F-35 was announced (not very convincingly) at the Pentagon news conference:
Journo: What's going to be the nomenclature for these airplanes? What's the designation?
Pete Aldridge (Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisitions): Very good question. It's going to be called -- the Lockheed version was the X-35 --
James Roche (Secretary of the Air Force): Mike knows. Mike knows the answer.
Aldridge: Mike, the answer is?
Maj Gen Mike Hough (JSF Program Manager): F-35.
Aldridge: F-35. Thank you, I knew -- X-35 was the Lockheed --
Journo: How did you decide on that? Where does that come from, the F-35?
Maj Gen Hough: It's a list of the different variants, different companies, different --
Aldridge: The Boeing version was X-32.
Journo: Okay.