- 5/11/2025
Inside The World's Most Advanced Fighter Jet - F-35
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00:00whoa that's something else
00:06US Air Force Plant 4 one of the world's biggest military facilities covering a
00:16size of three square kilometers it's pretty much the same size as New York's Central Park
00:22these facilities are run by Lockheed Martin who specialize in building the world's most
00:28advanced fighter jet the F-35 we are getting exclusive behind-the-scenes access checking
00:36out the F-35 and meet the only female fighter jet test pilot at Lockheed Martin who's going to train
00:43me on the official F-35 simulator before we suit up and she goes up in an actual F-35 all right
00:51I'm ready I'm here to give us both behind the scenes access to the most advanced military
01:00technology on the planet it has taken me two years to get access inside those doors it is heavily
01:07secured it is locked down so what makes the F-35 the world's most advanced fighter jet ever built
01:14first off stealth under military radar get this the F-35 shows up the size of a golf ball more on that
01:24later it's crazy fast hitting speeds of 2,000 kilometers an hour and a $250,000 helmet that
01:32literally projects data and enemy targets onto the visor the F-35 also comes in three different models
01:39the A B and C model the F-35 a is built for traditional runways then there's the F-35 B which
01:47can operate from smaller ships or remote airfields taking off in short distances and even landing
01:53vertically like a drone or a helicopter and finally the F-35 C is designed specifically for aircraft
02:01carriers with larger wings and a stronger landing gear for those tough at-sea landings
02:07right here is where they actually manufacture the F-35 so on either side the left and the right you
02:15have got jets lining this hallway the production line you won't believe this is over a mile long
02:23they currently have over a hundred fighter jets on this production line to put that length into
02:30perspective that's roughly the length of the Brooklyn Bridge or over 17 soccer fields and it has a
02:36workforce of over 18,000 people that's three times the population of the average US town the first
02:44plane produced here was during the Second World War in 1942 that was the B-24 Liberator which was then
02:51followed by the B-32 then the B-36, XB-58, F-111, F-16, F-22 and then from 2004 the F-35 in Fort Worth
03:03what we're going to see today has different levels of secret from confidential all the way up to top
03:10secret starting off with the metrology lab this is where you really get to see the level of detail
03:18and attention that goes into these masterpieces of engineering this here is the metrology team say hi
03:25guys they don't talk to people very often not to be confused with the much less accurate
03:33meteorology metrology is a science of measuring things so this right here guys this
03:41i'm touching a panel an F-35 panel which is pretty much impossible to touch an actual F-35 unless
03:50you're a special engineer or you're a fighter pilot who we're going to speak to very soon so this is
03:56quite exciting to be able to do this this is like the outer skin of an F-35 this is on the belly of the
04:02aircraft and you see all of these fasteners here so i've got one here in total one F-35 has 40 000
04:11of these fasteners so this one here we go bam done you guys needed me for that didn't you this this takes
04:20some expertise guys i mean you got to go to university for that what they do here is they actually scan
04:25panels so um and and spaces so that everything fits together perfectly so they can get it all digitized
04:32and all of the pieces and everything else can kind of perfectly fit in one space have you got me
04:37i've currently got a laser beam in my eye now what we do with that is figure out what space i can fit
04:43into which car is best suited for my height my weight bam that's the car i'm gonna buy the level of
04:50detail in this lab is extraordinary the precision to get the measurements just right and find the tiniest
04:58of scratches or scuffs is just something else taking a picture of a gel so as you bend or deflect that gel
05:04you can see the shadow that it casts so if we stick this on here oh yeah
05:11detailed image oh fine specks of dust if you want to hold that and stick it on something oh wow
05:19this is when you see how dirty the surface is right or a scratch defects yeah yeah interesting
05:28this is what an actual panel from the f35 looks like and feels like and this has stealth coating
05:35on it look you have to do the tap test right just have to this scanner here is looking for the
05:42imperfections and the damages that you can't see so it's inside the material this is um carbon fiber
05:49composite here so with this scanner what i can do is i just push down on this and then it will show me
05:56here on the screen where the damage is you see this it'll pop up here as i go over you see there and
06:05it's like oh you wouldn't have seen that with the naked eye but now you can see that something
06:10internally needs to be fixed dr matt team milo are you sure that's correct right there yes what this
06:17formula is doing is we are detecting a transponder in space and we are now we are figuring out how to
06:23compute that into the robot's coordinate frame so the robot can deal with the transponder as detected by a
06:29different antenna this is my contribution to this whole thing what after getting the ultimate lesson
06:36in measuring it was time to meet the only female fighter jet test pilot at lockheed martin we're
06:41moving on to top secret and meeting her in the equipment room where the pilots get ready for a flight
06:47it is so cool to see what these guys go through they really get some intense training and i'm going to
06:53find out all about it all right now this is where all the pilots get ready it was like backstage uh they
06:59get their suits on their helmets etc etc we are about to meet the only female test pilot for the f35
07:08jets here at lockheed martin hey uh siren oh hey you're siren right come on in yeah i'm god it's such a
07:17pleasure nice to meet you this is siren everyone and that's her call name you say a call name right
07:24call sign yeah that is the coolest call sign i gotta know the story behind your call sign
07:29where did siren come from so there's obviously a little bit of background behind it but just
07:35overall big picture i had a tendency to set fire sirens off uh really yeah oh my god sirens and
07:43police sirens off yeah these are your boxes where you get dressed up so you've got all of this stuff
07:47so we've got so these are all the other call signs right so puff we've got hooch yeah jabber
07:54we've got you siren oh wait wait wait we got oh hello we got one of our f-16 pilots this is seeker
08:06hi seeker how are you nice to meet you did you just come back from a flight did hour and a half
08:11oh my god nothing but fun what did you get up to like what were you doing up there just
08:15uh well we were shooting air to air and bombing of course you were another fighter player i call
08:21you guys the cool people you know i'm just um so uncool around you like my cool fact has gone down to
08:27here you guys are like fighter pilots yeah it's crazy so he has the different wings from all of us oh
08:34interesting what are your wings these are my wings wings has a little oh interesting and pilot wings and
08:42what do you have on yours then so he has the most f-16 time of any lucky martin pilot wow how long
08:49six thousand hours six thousand hours do you ever get bored like seriously no every single hour is it
08:55fun like do you see it as fun every day is fun or else i wouldn't be here yeah wow what's the scariest
09:01situation you guys have been in up there um i think it was probably uh in the middle east yeah combat
09:10yeah see combat yeah pretty close to the sand one time yeah there's a sandstorm there so you didn't
09:16see the ground that's what what you said was my little barometer got we got low wow i didn't tell my
09:22wife for a few years really wow thanks guys great guys i love that i love that so these are like
09:31this is your team right i mean there's 14 of you 14 in the world and you're the only woman correct
09:37and then you got to put up with these blokes absolutely every day it's like 13 big brothers
09:42i never wanted yeah yeah but you're stuck but i stuck yeah yeah how on earth do you become
09:47the only woman here at lockheed martin as a test pilot i went to the u.s air force academy which is
09:54a military university for four years immediately right out of high school so and that's where i got
10:00my engineering degree so i have a astronautical engineering degree from that point on you graduate
10:05and then that's when you determine where your career field will go okay so i got a pilot slot what
10:11then competition from then on out really um it is literally how well you do in each phase
10:17of pilot training okay which pilot training is about a year long before siren and i both get
10:23suited up and she gets ready for a real f-35 flight she's going to train me just like lockheed martin
10:29pilots do on the official f-35 flight simulator and after that we're going to take a look at an actual
10:35f-35 in real life wish me luck because um i have no idea how i'm going to handle this simulator all
10:41right all right come on in thank you so this is a simulator yes it simulates the f-35 so this is
10:48exactly what you would see yes and each one of these formats are uh can be changed per the pilot's
10:55preference i have literally zero clue what is going on here how long does it take you to learn all of
11:04this so generally if we put a completely new student yeah in an f-35 they've got it down with all the
11:11simulators probably in a handful of simulators especially if you are smart enough to be a fighter
11:17pilot i can sign in all right cool all right i gotta i gotta feel what you feel all right i bet you don't
11:23get this comfy seat though in there it's actually yeah the seat is very comfortable really okay so
11:28you're gonna push this okay oh now you're trapped i'm trapped oh okay all right so take me through
11:36everything is this exactly you know the functions you would have yeah in the fighter jet okay a majority
11:43of the functions that we would manipulate on the screen can be done on what we call the stick in the
11:48throttle the stick in the throttle okay yeah and that beeping what is that that is the radar just
11:55telling me you got some do you hear that all the time in the jet actually you can turn it off
12:01yeah everything is programmable all right okay so hand goes here exactly so think of this as your gas
12:07pedal okay yeah that controls your speed how fast and how slow you really want to go so to go faster
12:13what do i do fall forward fall forward yeah okay and then you if you push it forward a little bit more
12:18yeah that's what we that's afterburner that's afterburner what does that mean exactly a whole
12:24lot more thrust i like it okay how does that actually feel in the jet do you get thrown back
12:29you can't yes it's 43 000 pounds of thrust yeah immediately wow you strap it on to a controllable
12:36rocket almost insane and you'll feel that pressure how fast are you going we'll take it up to almost
12:412 000 kilometers an hour 2 000 kilometers an hour mark 1.6 okay i've done 300 kilometers an hour that's
12:50that's the fastest i've been that's pretty impressive on a ground like well wow okay what's the red button
12:56they're always important red yes yes if it's red if it's right you gotta know about it you gotta know
13:02about it don't rest your thumb on it yeah that is how you would shoot a missile or drop a bomb okay yes
13:08of course that's going to be red yeah all right and then this one here that's your gun oh all right
13:14okay now we're talking what can i do we're going to take you off okay all right all right i'm glad
13:20this is not real uh so put your hand on the left yeah uh throttle there so this is think for your
13:26driving uh steering wheel but we do have two bad guys out there if you want to go shoot them anywhere
13:31you see words you can probably touch it yeah okay um as well and you can expand and make smaller
13:39so yeah quite a bit oh my god there we go i found it yeah that works okay so this
13:46you got weapons ready to go make sure that we uh target these folks here and then take some shots
13:51bad guys bad guys all right okay so how do i fly all right so and hit go take your left hand go full
13:59forward all the way to you after burner when this hits 145 you're going to gently pull back on that
14:06stick go ahead pull back and relax oh that wasn't very gentle no yeah no it's a very sensitive it's
14:12very sensitive what would my g-force be right now uh right now you're at one g okay so it's fine but
14:18take your right hand and pull straight back harder harder harder there you go you're going
14:23going straight up yeah going about seven eight g's holy moly oh am i dying am i no no you're already
14:29at 15 000 feet oh wow so you just climbed like crazy yeah they just went straight up okay because you're
14:35going so fast how can you see things that might be approaching suddenly from left or right when
14:45you literally could be whizzing past them in in one second a lot of that and what a lot of the f-35
14:50allows us to do is to see those objects much farther out yeah okay um and we generally will
14:55use the radar as well as other sensors that are combined together to create what we call sensor
15:02fusion and that that to me as a pilot is the magic of the 35 and what makes it above and beyond so all
15:10all the sensors come together automatically basically to tell you what's going on exactly exactly and in
15:16the f-16 it didn't it was all manual correct nice so the she knows what she's doing i can walk away
15:23right now i came yesterday to do my research just to impress siren today i am impressed
15:30okay how do i get the bodies now remember this switch yes it'll control this cursor right here okay
15:36put it over a square take this switch right here yeah move it up once and let go and that's lock target
15:42you lock the target oh but we got it yeah yep perfect he's in this square uh okay and this is
15:49what we will see in our helmet ah i see okay cool remember that red button we talked oh red button
15:53oh i get to press the red button okay this will start flashing
15:59it does not sound like that in the drums it doesn't what does it sound like i feel the drag okay of the
16:06doors opening yes um and then you'll probably just hear the missile like pop almost and shoot out and
16:12then you'll close right up and you're going yeah unbelievable okay okay cool and then i can just do
16:19a roll in celebration absolutely all right i survived i survived my virtual flight thankfully i was more
16:26ready than ever to see an actual f-35 up close and personal because of how secret the cockpit is our cameras
16:34couldn't get too close oh here we are welcome to my office oh my god alex coolest office in the world
16:42come on i can't complain i can't complain there she is what's awesome about the f-35 is every edge
16:49yeah every corner of the fuselage meeting even the paint of the aircraft is what makes this jet stealth
16:56yeah and it was specifically designed for that just so you guys know this is a facility that's never
17:03been filmed in before all right this is super super special um and this is probably the closest i'll
17:09ever get to an f-35 i mean it's it's three arm lengths away you know it's just out of reach i mean
17:18she gets to be in them all day but this is pretty cool for me what's interesting for me is why is it
17:24that the nose always has a different kind of color to the rest of the jet so in the nose is where you'll find
17:31the radar okay or the aisa radar that we talked to the active electronically scanned array radar yeah
17:38and what's awesome about this view as well you can kind of see all the doors are open you have
17:43the gear doors open um as soon as those doors close the gears comes up it is a purely stealth aircraft
17:50you see a little bit of that hump yes uh right over the inlet yeah that's a gun
17:55and then the the missiles where do they come out from so what is not opened in the aircraft right
18:05now is the weapon bay doors of the aircraft which are on the very very bottom yeah very large doors
18:11two sets of doors so four doors will open up the f-35 can carry up to 18 000 pounds or 8 165 kilograms
18:21of ordnance that's like the weight of over four cyber trucks of military supplies and equipment
18:26alone that's so interesting though because the the integrity of the plane needs to be kept in order
18:33for it to be in stealth mode so as soon as a door opens everyone can see you but just just for that
18:40moment that it's open and then you close it and it's back into stealth mode it makes our radar signature
18:45a little bit larger okay to give you a bit of context a radar cross-section is a measure for
18:51how detectable something is by radar and depends on shape materials and things like sensors and antennas
18:58for example the radar cross-section of a human is one meter squared and that of a bird is 0.01
19:06meter squared but the radar cross-section of the f-35 is just a mere 0.005 meter squared which is the
19:15equivalent of a metal golf ball okay what's the hardest part of being a jet fighter pilot
19:23ooh the hardest part would would probably have to be being on your game at every moment that you're
19:32flying the aircraft yeah because one you have to know the aircraft inside out because you're up in
19:37the sky flying you know 2 000 kilometers an hour the longest mission i've done is a little under 12
19:43hours yes so you have to it's a mean in like mental 100 concentration for 12 hours yes all right one of
19:53the most incredible things about this is that it's fully stealth so once you once you're in the air you
19:58cannot see this this has radar absorption paint right how does that work uh i can talk a little
20:07bit about it but i can't tell you what it's made of that's for sure that's classified yes yes so okay
20:13interesting i've seen behind the scenes i've completed my pilot training on the simulator and
20:17i've been able to see a real f-35 up close now it's time to go back to the equipment room to try on
20:24the g-suit and the high-tech helmet that lets you see through the jet so you always keep this on
20:31underneath yep generally it's it's our flight suit that we would wear underneath it can be a green one
20:36that's on the table similar to what you see there it is also uh allows us to be fire protected uh this
20:42does actually protect you from fire this one okay this including the helmet is probably about 20 to 25
20:48pounds of uh worth of stuff that's quite a lot um yeah so it so what is this that you're doing right
20:54now so i'm protecting what we call the g-suit this is the g-suit okay what the pants that i'm wearing
21:01right connecting it to the uh pilot um pick is what we call here this is how we connect to the jet
21:08okay from a communications oxygen oxygen it would generally just sit and push down okay and it connects
21:15all everything on the bottom of it is connected oh there you go and then obviously you've got your
21:20thing i'm very technical yeah you know the thing that hangs off your face yeah yeah so this is uh each
21:30pilot is specifically um measured for their mask all right interesting so that we don't have any leaks
21:36if we go up to high altitudes what happens with a g-suit what go how does it help you deal with g-force
21:42so the g-suit so an average human will generally be able to handle about four to five g's that's
21:47generally what a roller coaster okay yeah right because the f35 can go up to nine g's yeah you
21:53have to be able to counter that extra four to five g's right right and every g is like your weight on
21:59top of you exactly pushing down on you yeah i'm not gonna tell you how much i weigh but uh it's nine
22:05times that yeah it's like a bear sitting on your chest okay so the g-suit provides about a g to a g and
22:11a half of protection extra how does it do that there's little air bubbles on the inside of the g
22:17suit yeah that the jet knows as you pull g's it inflates those air bubbles because you don't want
22:24to pass out right from g locking so increasing the air bubbles kind of puts a layer of like pressure on
22:31the suit and not your body it actually puts it on your body to push blood up because when we pull g's
22:37all the blood pushes down the first thing most people see when they experience g-forces is that
22:44tunnel vision so you it's look like you're looking through a straw wow everything else is black around
22:50until you're in that straw let's have a look at these helmets officially known as the gen3 helmet mounted
22:55display system the f35 helmet is one of the most advanced pieces of wearable technology in the world
23:02its price tag of 250 000 makes it as expensive as a lamborghini hurricane all right so this is your
23:11helmet got siren right here all right talk me through it like how complex is this this is not
23:15just your average like bicycle helmet no it's uh it is awesome because it is completely made to fit
23:23only my head cool uh and the way that they do it it takes two days generally and they will 3d scan
23:30your head so if you ever want to know what you look like bulb yeah no thanks but they do that
23:34specifically because this is almost an additional sensor for pilots because this is what we do to
23:40employ weapons so we need it to be extremely precise so once we put it on and we connect it using this
23:47hose into the aircraft it now becomes an additional sensor that we would use to
23:55look at different targets uh both in the air and on the ground so you have all of the little like
24:03i don't know the squares squares and everything absolutely in the vision absolutely so you'll see that
24:08you'll see about a lot of other navigational things yeah um inside the helmet as well and all that is
24:15actually shown on this visor using the inside visor the inside visor and then this is just really cool sunglasses
24:23yeah um yep but this also allows us uh i get to pretend to be wonder woman for a little bit and
24:30i'll put a camera one of those outside cameras of the jet into the helmet and now i can see through the
24:36jet oh what yeah yeah so it's it's a really weird feeling at first wait what but i'll look down and
24:44it's like i'm looking at the ground shall we do helmet time together sure yeah all right
24:48let me know if it's uncomfortable no that's great okay i don't think that's gonna fit
25:01oh who is this skinny person i can be a fighter pilot without any training now we're talking there
25:10yeah it's the fast track all right i'm ready here's my co co fighter pilot
25:18and my call sign is blondie blondie
25:25and now that we've seen how you get your kid on siren's going to talk us through what she does
25:29step by step when preparing to get into an f-35 for a mission when you're flying a fighter aircraft it is
25:36intense exhilarating and stressful all at the exact same time so preparing for a flight once i
25:44approach the jet it's two different things the first part is a mental thing you're so focused on
25:51the mission but then there's that physical part of it they're going to the jet with all your gear on
25:56greeting our maintainers they're asking them questions about the jet and then doing a quick
26:01walk around making sure the jet is ready to go fly every now and then i'll probably get nervous
26:06depending on the mission but for the most part the nerves get settled especially the more experienced
26:11of a pilot you become once you put the helmet on it is go time you are strapping into one of the most
26:18powerful machines on earth with 43 000 pounds of breasts you turn it on and you're seeing what the f-35
26:36when you sit back and you think about it and you're three to four feet from another fighter aircraft the
26:43f-35 going hundreds of miles an hour you're like oh okay this is really cool i don't really think of
26:51myself as a female pilot or actually the only female pilot here at lockheed martin i think of myself as a
26:58fighter pilot and i think that is a testament to everybody that i work with i will say though that
27:04representing female fighter pilots it's an honor and humbling for me to do especially just for those
27:10who really need to see that it's possible it is possible well that's the end of my fantasy i'm afraid
27:17this is where i stop and all the cool girls keep going sarin fun job thank you so so much and thank
27:24you so much for spending the day with me i really appreciate it oh thanks for coming out it was great
27:27having you so cool to learn from you and uh massive thank you to lockheed martin for uh opening up the
27:33doors to a top top secure location and um we will see you on the next vid i hope you guys liked it
27:41thank you for liking the video and thank you for subscribing we'll see you on the next vid
27:45bye we're out i'm going to the car and you're going to the jet
27:57bye
28:08bye
28:10bye
28:14bye
28:16bye
28:18bye
28:20bye
28:22bye
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