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Inside the Joint Strike Fighter Competition
jonerik writes "The June issue of the Atlantic Monthly has this account of the history of the Joint Strike Fighter competition between Boeing and Lockheed Martin (which the latter company ended up winning this past fall, with Boeing now touting its expanding line of unmanned aircraft as the true future of tactical aviation). The article does a fine job of showing how the competitors dealt with the challenge of producing an aircraft (now dubbed the F-35) that the Air Force, Navy, Marines, RAF, and Royal Navy could all live with. Funniest part: Boeing's X-32 entry, with its enormous pelican-like jet intake, had some questioning whether the plane's bizarre appearance didn't hurt its chances more than its performance. 'Helpful as my contacts at Boeing were, no one was eager to claim credit for the design of the plane,' says the article's writer James Fallows." Fascinating article.
The F-22A is a replacement for the high hour F-15 A/B and C/D models of single seat interceptor and the two seat trainer versions of those aircraft which are in service with the United States Air Force, Air National Guard, Air Force Reserver, Israeli Defence Forces, Saudi Arabian Air Force.
The F-35 is a replacement for the F-16, Sea Harrier, Harrier GR, Harrier II, F-104, FA-18 A/B and other older single-seat fighters in service with the United States Air Force, United States Navy, United States Marine Corps, Royal Navy, Royal Air Force, Dutch, Belgan, Israeli militaries and possibly the Turkish and Italian, as well as others.
The F-35 is a single seat, single engined aircraft with a top speed of about Mach 1.3. The F-22 is a single seat, twin engined aircraft that can go Mach 1.4 without turning on it's afterburners and has a higher celling than the 35.
In short, there are 2 new fighter planes coming out because there are different roles that need filling.