Boeing X-32

The Boeing X-32 was a concept demonstrator aircraft designed for the Joint Strike Fighter competition, which lost to the Lockheed Martin X-35 that was developed into the F-35 Lightning II. It grew out of the Common Affordable Lightweight Fighter project, merged into the Joint Strike Fighter program in 1995, and on 16 November 1996 Boeing and Lockheed Martin each won a contract for two demonstrators. To meet the short take-off and vertical landing requirement Boeing chose a direct-lift thrust-vectoring system, with a derivative of the Pratt and Whitney F119 afterburning turbofan and a heavy delta wing. The X-32A first flew on 18 September 2000 and the X-32B vertical-landing version on 29 March 2001. In 2005 the X-32A went to the National Museum of the United States Air Force and the X-32B to the Patuxent River Naval Air Museum.