Love It or hate it the F-35 is a technological marvel

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#23 This here is an Image of the MGM grand Hotel taken by EOTS from 60 miles or 90 Km away. See what I mean about it being able detect even the coldest of objects?

#20 BUT WAIT THERES STILL MORE! She can use this beauty to create a live updating Map/Image of the ground. See this right here? She can use the radar with such accuracy and resolution that It will see the tracks left by your lawn mower! Why is this so Awesome? Because with previous systems you would be lucky to make out a damn house.

How is this all possible you ask?

#26 Obligatory dog tax

#1 This right here motherfuckers is the honey badger of the skies the F-35A. Come rain, snow, hail or Hell she will find you and kill you as easily as the British make tea. She is the Lightest and most maneuverable of the F-35 variants capable of sustaining 9+ G's and a top speed of Mach 1.6+. The maneuverability has been described by pilots as either an "supercharged F-16" or "second only to the Raptor".

#2 See that right there? That's a fantastic little javelin of death known as the AIM-120D. It has Two way data links, GPS AND INS guidance, and a two stage rocket motor. What's all that mean you say? It means it can and will reach out and obliterate its target at 100 freedom units away or 160Km for you others out there. BUT WAIT THERES MORE! The F-35 can carry six of these death arrows internally meaning one F-35 can stand to feast on a flight and a half of her prey in one sitting.

#3 Remember that little part about "come rain, snow, hail or Hell" this Is my case in point.

#4 May your creator help you if the USAF ever decides to visit your front door with these two Daemons of the sky.

#5 This right here is yet another incarnation of the Honey badger of the sky but it takes it to a whole new level as it could not give a flying fuck even if you take out its airfields. I present the F-35B she may not be the most maneuverable but taking that to mean she's not as capable would be a fatal miscalculation.

#6 This is what makes the F-35B all possible while being a massive improvement over the plane she's replacing the Av-8B Harrier. This system consist of a 3BSD (three bearing swivel duct) nozzle that redirects the engine exhaust, Shaft driven lift fan and a pair of roll post for stability. Unlike the harrier that had Hot gas ingestion problems the cool air from the lift fan acts a boundary to prevent the F-35B from ingesting its own exhaust.

Note: this is the lift system from the Prototype X-35.

#10 For those times when things must absolutely die even the heavier F-35B can carry up to 21,000lbs of ordinance between her internal and external hard points. That's more than an F-16C, F-15C or A-10C and damn close to the payload capabilities of the F-15E.

#11 Here we can see the F-35B majestically hovering above her sea fairing airstrip.

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#13 This right here is beauty incarnate.... you know minus the fact she's a down right ruthless killing machine.

#14 This My friends is the F-35C (or "Reaper" as some in the navy call her) the most expensive variant of the F-35 family. She's not as maneuverable as the F-35A but she is more agile thanks to the larger wing. She is replacing the F-18C and pilots love her for it. You see besides all the fancy electronics and gizmos she's more maneuverable and agile than the F-18C by a large margin though it does helps that she practically lands herself.

#15 MMMMHH look at that tasty Afterburner!
She may be expensive but the F-35C is greatly needed to replace the F-18C fleet that is literally falling apart from the heavy wear and tear of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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#17 and here she is all lined up the floating freedom Island.

#18 Now that we have seen all the pretty pictures lets talk about what makes her worthy of the title "honey badger of the skies".

See those two little windows below the canopy? The one on the right there is part of a system called Distributed aperture system or DAS for short. It allows the pilot to see, ID and react to any threat within 15 miles in a 360 degree sphere of the aircraft. Though I must add that there are reports of it detecting and identifying A-A missile launches from 1,200 miles away. From AK-47s to missiles or fighters it sees all.

The little window on the left is part of the Multifunction advanced data link or MADL for short. It is a secure line of sight (LOS) communication system that largely replaces the open and trackable link16 system found on the F-16 and F-15 platforms. It can transmit and receive three orders of magnitude more data than the old link16 system can (think dial-up Vs Fiber) and in completely stealthy manner. This truly makes the F-35 a 21st century fighter.

#19 This Fucking beauty here is the AN/APG-81 Active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar that sits in the Radome at the front of every F-35. These AESA types are thus far the king of Radars they are up to 30% more efficient than the radars carried by most other fighters, have 120 degree FOV (versus 90 in older systems), and can track many targets stealthily. This particular one can see other fighters at well beyond 150 freedom units or 241 Km for the tea sippers out there.

#21 Its all thanks to thousand of these little guys! These are called transmit and receive modules or TX/RX for short. Each AN/APG-81 has anywhere from 1500 to 2500 of these TX/RX modules depending on whose estimate you go by. The awesome thing about them is that they are digital and can each independently act as a mini radar with its own bandwidth and frequency or they can be grouped together to form several mini radars. This effectively allows the AN/APG-81 to change frequencies 1000's of times a second while only using the minimum power required to track a target. So what you may ask? Well this means that the F-35 can detect, track, fire at and kill you without you or your sensors ever even knowing something was searching for you.

# 22 Now this right here is the Eye of Sauron or as others call it the Electro optical targeting system or EOTS for short. It is an all weather day or night thermal sensor capable of passively targeting and tracking even the coldest of objects at 90 miles or 140+ km away. Most other similar systems can only pull that off when looking at an afterburner after some bad Taco bell. She can and will Pos ID any target from airliners to the dumbass with an AK.

#25 Now this right here is what ties this all together and makes the F-35 the most lethal thing in he sky. I present the Helmet Mounted Display version 3 or HMDIII for short. This beauty of technology essentially gives the pilot X-ray vision and ties together all the sensors we talked about and a few I skipped through something called sensor fusion. The F-35 also just so happens to be the best damn thing on the planet at sensor fusion as she has over 650 ways to detect track and identify targets. To put that all into perspective even her bigger cousin the F-22 only has 150-200 ways to track, and ID her targets.

Feel free to ask questions or expand upon what I've talked about (I left out a lot of other cool stuff to shorten this for you)

Credit to Lockheed Martins Flicker account for most of the Hi-res beauty shots. 

FP Edit: Wow I can't believe this made FP! Seriously expected to reach around -50 with this post so thank you people of Imgur! Again if you have any questions about this aircraft (or any modern one really) I'm more than willing to answer them in the comments or by PM.