Lightning II
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So what did you think of the Buccaneer? The A7? The F-117? etc. I too am attracted to attractive aircraft such as the Spitfire, The Sabre, the Hustler, the F-15, etc. But the truth is found in their mission performance. Too early to say for the F-35, but here's hoping.
For sure, though, the X-32 was as ugly as they get and could only have been selected as a naval aircraft on that basis. 😏
At the time leading to the down select some folks, myself included, could not deny the striking resemblance between it and the Boeing Company CEO. Pictures of both, side by side, adorned many aviation related offices, then. Ugly as sin.
I agree that a Typhoon & F35 combination should be quite potent. However, while F35 with its stealth and sensor fusion is likely to be fairly advanced today, in years to come the benefits of these will be eroded. This is my concern in that the basic aircraft itself is quite limited in terms of pure performance. The so called 5th generation attributes will become less relevant with age and unlike Typhoon which remains extremely capable in terms of pure performance F35 limitations could well become exposed.
I can understand calling it the Lightning but not the II suffix. We don't do that.
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Anorak here. By rights the F-35 should be the Lightning IV. The very first Lightning was the P-38, though an American aircraft the name was bestowed by the British, in British service to be known as "Lightning Mark I", and a one off P-38, "Lightning Mark II". For the US the F-35 is indeed a Lightning II, as they never enjoyed newt's Lightning Mk. III except by way of exchange.
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Anorak here. By rights the F-35 should be the Lightning IV. The very first Lightning was the P-38, though an American aircraft the name was bestowed by the British, in British service to be known as "Lightning Mark I", and a one off P-38, "Lightning Mark II". For the US the F-35 is indeed a Lightning II, as they never enjoyed newt's Lightning Mk. III except by way of exchange.
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https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/products/f-16.html
A service nickname perhaps...
Interestingly ..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panther
and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_panther