US combines two F-35 wrecks into new fighter

The US joined the fuselage of two damaged F-35s to create a complete fighter, to save costs and components.

The US Air Force announced on November 30 that it is implementing a project to combine two damaged F-35 stealth fighters into a new one, called Franken-bird. The project is being carried out by the F-35 Program Management Office (JPO) at Hill Air Force Base in Utah, with the support of the 388th Squadron stationed at Hill Base, F-35 manufacturer Lockheed Martin and the base's logistics force.

“This is the first time the F-35 program has undertaken such an exciting project,” said Dan Santos, JPO manager of maintenance operations.

According to the US Air Force, the two damaged F-35s had serial numbers AF-27 and AF-211. The AF-27 suffered an engine fire while parked at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida in 2014, destroying two-thirds of the aircraft. The pilot managed to escape safely, but the incident caused more than $50 million in damage to the US Air Force.

The AF-27 was later partially rebuilt, qualified for use as a practice aircraft for the maintenance engineer team at Hill Base.

The process of assembling a Franken-bird fighter in a photo released on November 30. Photo: US Air Force

Meanwhile, the AF-211 suffered a nose-end failure in June 2020 while attempting to land at Hill Air Force Base. The Air Force has not yet released a report on the cause and damage of the incident.

According to images shared by the US Air Force, the Franken-bird was assembled from two main parts: the fuselage of the AF-211 and the nose of the AF-27, which remained relatively intact after the 2014 fire.

"Theoretically, every part of the F-35 fighter can be disassembled and reassembled, but this has never been done before. This will be the first 'Franken-bird' built," said Scott Taylor, chief engineer of Lockheed Martin involved in the project.

Taylor said the US began studying the possibility of reassembling damaged F-35 fighters in January 2020, before the AF-211 incident. "The JPO invited Lockheed Martin to participate in the project because we have successfully restored severely damaged F-22 fighters," he said.

According to the US Air Force, the difference between Franken-bird and previous fighter repair and restoration programs is that this project will build a detailed set of documents to standardize the process, making similar pairings easier. The force also said that it has designed and manufactured many specialized tools and equipment to serve the project.

"This project will open up opportunities to repair future aircraft that have encountered problems using the tools, knowledge and techniques that have been developed," Santos stressed.

According to Joseph Trevithick, a military expert at Drive , overhauling modern military aircraft is very complicated, especially with stealth fighters like the F-35, because they require precise assembly down to the smallest detail.

"Just a small gap in the F-35's anti-radar coating is enough to affect the fighter's stealth capabilities. Pairing two F-35s is not as simple as screwing them together," Trevithick said.

This is not the first time the US military has combined parts of two weapons into one. In 2009, the US Navy received three new two-seat F-5F fighters, built by Lockheed Martin by combining existing fighter parts with components from the single-seat F-5E of the Swiss Air Force.

In 2005, the US Navy attack submarine USS San Francisco was severely damaged when it struck a reef, but was later returned to service using a replacement bow section taken from the decommissioned submarine USS Honolulu.

F-35A squadron parked at Hill Air Force Base in 2020. Photo: US Air Force

Several other countries have also undertaken similar projects. The Finnish Air Force built an F/A-18D Hornet fighter by combining a badly damaged F-18C with a Canadian Air Force CF-18B variant.

Earlier this year, the French nuclear attack submarine Perle, which was damaged in a fire in 2020, was recommissioned after being fitted with components from the Saphir submarine of the same class, making it larger than other Rubis-class submarines.

"However, it is uncertain what specific benefits the 'Frankensteinization' of the F-35 fighter will bring, especially when considering the feasibility of doing this in the field, due to the complex design of the stealth aircraft, which requires a lot of logistical support," Trevithick commented.

Time and cost are also big questions. The US Air Force has not revealed when the Frankenbird project will begin, but has said the fighter will be completed as early as March 2025. Lockheed Martin previously spent nearly five years restoring an F-22 damaged by a runway crash, costing about $35 million in repairs.

Even if the Frankenbird project cost the same amount to build, it would still be cheaper than the total damage caused by the AF-27 fire, and less than half the cost of buying new F-35As, which are estimated to cost around $80 million apiece.

More importantly, the Franken-bird project will help the US Air Force partly solve the problem of the lack of spare parts, a challenge that is believed to affect the combat capability of this aircraft line in large-scale conflicts, according to expert Trevithick.

Pham Giang (According to Drive )

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