STOVL (Short Take Off and Vertical Landing) planes have been in development and use since 1951, though only two planes have ever reached operational status. On Thursday, Lockheed Martin‘s F-35 Lightning II test plane made its very first vertical landing.
To quote the late, great Douglass Adams: It “hung in the air in exactly the same way that bricks don’t.”
As a long time lover of Batman: The Animated Series, this reminds me of nothing so much as the Batwing. Yes, in a world where all the men wore suits, televisions were in black and white, and everybody drove a Studebaker, Batman had a freaking spaceship.
Now, after watching actual video of a propeller-less object that hangs in the air and then gently touches down in one giant “screw you!” to physics, I am filled with only one simple feeling:
“It’s a witch! Burn it!”
(via Pop Sci.)
