Lockheed Martin's latest technological marvel is unquestionably the most advanced combat aircraft ever created. Essentially a versatile, cheaper, and exportable version of the groundbreaking F-22 Raptor, which was the first fighter aircraft developed in the fifth generation, the F-35 was determined ready for duty in 2016. While it doesn't quite have the abilities of the Raptor in air-to-air "dogfighting," the Lightning excels in areas such as ground-to-air missile defense and overall flexibility. The F-35 will allow the US and its allies to have to most potent weapon in any Air Force worldwide, boasting the latest technology developed for combat. This includes low-maintenance stealth technology that will hold up and stay effective even after extended use of the aircraft, advanced sensors and a helmet display in front of the pilot that give him/her complete awareness of the aircraft's surroundings complete with a panoramic touchscreen display and cockpit speech recognition system (basically a super powerful version of "Siri"). All of this allows the pilot to engage multiple targets at once, whether in close range combat or from a distance. The United States plans to purchase several hundred of the aircraft from Lockheed Martin while production of the F-22 will cease due to incredibly high costs, despite it having some advantages over its "younger brother".
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| The F-35 Lightning II is the latest aircraft purchased by the US military |
The software included in the F-35 lightning was written in C or C++, due to access to a multitude of programmers that use those languages. Some of the coding was reused from the F-22 Raptor, but the new code that had to be developed is absolutely mind-boggling in complexity. One program contains about 8.6 million lines of code! Needless to say, the most knowledgeable programmers at their disposal were assigned to develop software for the plane which is to become the face of the US Air Force. Some of the most useful software that has been developed includes a program that is capable of jamming the radar of the enemy's aircraft, even potentially an F-22's radar. Computer science plays a huge role in the technology used by the military in general, not just aircraft. Our ability to stay ahead in the latest developments in computing is directly tied to our ability to field the best possible military technology. A major goal is to make the most advanced weaponry as cheap as possible, something that can be aided by computer science. For now though, despite high costs, all of the development in the F-35 has paid off; The US has a air-superiority fighter which is more capable in combat than any aircraft on the planet, expect for the even more expensive F-22.
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning_II#Design
http://foundrymag.com/site-files/foundrymag.com/files/gallery_images/F-35-Lightning-II.jpg?1412356929
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