The Boeing X-32 Stealth Fighter Still Haunts the US Military, Lockheed Martin, and the F-35

The Boeing X-32 Stealth Fighter Still Haunts the US Military, Lockheed Martin, and the F-35

Boeing designed the X-32 to be cheap to build and cheap to own. Its conventional and short-takeoff versions shared as much as possible, it used low-cost carbon-fiber composites, and former Navy test pilot David Tussey called it the more manufacturable design. Pilots said it flew much like an F/A-18 Hornet, whose control laws it borrowed, and the two prototypes logged 144 flights on a single Pratt & Whitney JSF119. But its Harrier-style direct-li…