The Japanese military seems to be very happy about it, although it's not clear it will ever pass the prototype test phase. For now, only a full scale mockup for radar profiling—it appears as a group of insects or a bird, they say—and a RC model have been built. [Flight Global]

"The aircraft flew very well, exceeding my expectations," Kromberg said. "I was surprised by the amount of power on the takeoff roll. And the handling, particularly with the gear up, was phenomenal. The aircraft was very stable flying in formation with another airplane. It was really a joy to fly."

So there you go: two thumbs up from Señor Flipper. I don't know about you, but I'm happy that the $40 billion total development costs have resulted in a plane that handles phenomenally well with the gear up (which is more than you can say about the Strategic Defense Initiative).

The F-35, nicknamed Lightning II in honor of the WW2 fighter P-38 Lightning, has flown only 28 times, all of them except this one commanded by Lockheed Martin's own test pilots, Jon Beesley and Jeff Knowles. The last flight happened on March 12th, for its first aerial refueling test shown here:

The F-35 Lightning II is scheduled to debut in 2011, after its maiden flight back in 2006. Powered by a Pratt & Whitney F135 afterburning turbofan capable of delivering 40,000 pounds of force, with an additional Rolls-Royce Lift System for the F-35B short take-off and vertical landing variant, the F-35 has been designed to be the número uno strike fighter in the world until around 2040.

At that point, we all hope that 1) no more modern fighters would be needed after that date, or 2) they develop Veritech fighters to defend Earth against the Zentraedi. [LockheedMartin and Wikipedia]