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The initial version of F-35 was lifted wholesale from Yakovlev Yak-141. Basically during the wild late 80's early 90's in Russia Lockheed Martin entered into an
by m0zg 8y ago
The initial version of F-35 was lifted wholesale from Yakovlev Yak-141. Basically during the wild late 80's early 90's in Russia Lockheed Martin entered into an agreement with the Yakovlev bureau to do who knows what with Yak-141 (which sounds impossible and wild in itself nowadays). The agreement lasted just long enough for them to rip everything off and was then dissolved.
http://aviationintel.com/yak-141-freestyle-the-f-35b-was-born-in-moscow/ http://aviationintel.com/yak-141-freestyle-the-f-35b-was-bor...
- philwelch 8y agoThat's a massive exaggeration at best. The F-35B variant borrows the lift fan design from the Yak-141. That's a single feature of a single variant of an aircraft that has a half-dozen other completely unrelated features. The Yak-141 didn't have helmet-mounted displays, it wasn't stealthy, it didn't have the new combat information management systems, it wasn't built out of modern composite materials, and so forth.
- m0zg 8y agoWould be quite a feat to have all those things in late 80s, don't you think? :-) It's not an "exaggeration" The planes even look similar, and Lockheed got $1.5T in government money for a few million they spent bribing government officials in Moscow.
- philwelch 8y ago> Would be quite a feat to have all those things in late 80s, don't you think? :-) The F-35 has them. The Yak-141 didn't. Therefore, it absolutely is an exaggeration to say the F-35 was "lifted wholesale" from the Yak-141. Two of the three F-35 variants don't even have the lift fan!