Top 10 Iconic RAAF Aircraft - 2: Lockheed Martin F-35A Lightning II. 

Its definitely one of the greatest aircraft's ever created, despite all the flash back from social media

The F35 is an incredible collection of engineering challanges and advancements. Truly awe inspiring!

Truly in awe the RAAF now has all the capabilities the F-35 brings to our nation. Happy 100th Birthday RAAF - thankyou and best wishes and great respect to one and all of you!

Computer pretending to be an aeroplane 😂. Waited at coffee shop at Fighter World In miserable cold & rainy conditions for hours just to see our new F-35’s. Crickey what an aircraft🤤. Thanks for sharing 👍🏻👍🏻🙃🙃

Respect to our Nation's Defence Force.👍

This has to mean that the Pig is top of the pops. (it is anyway, but for this list)

F111 better be no. 1, yes this is a big new jet, but hasn't really earned a spot in this list. Its to new, many others could of taken its place.

I seen you fly over newcastle on that day in 2018 ,i actually filmed it flying straight over carrington . I knew they were 2 brand new F35s !

A gorgeous aircraft, would be an honour to fly them one day!

We need 100 more of these!

Even if your view about WW2 is that its in the dim dark past (which speaks volumes if that is the case with the RAAF) and you chose a jet. Can someone explain to me how the F35 is more iconic than the Mirage III? Mach 2 fighter,......delta wing and one of the most beautiful and sleek jets to ever serve anywhere?? I'm genuinely flabbergasted!

So incredibly proud! And can I say AWESOME!

Great selection from an old school PAF. Have followed the development of this awesome aircraft and yes I know that there are lots of other aircraft who would qualify to be listed but this aircraft is going to be our mainstay for a long time and most of our selections were a bit rough on the edges but turned out to be the Top Dogs on the block in the hands of our aircrew and maintenance professionals stay safe all thanks for the F-35

Love the f-35, was great at Avalon. my pick for #1 can only be F-111. Big seemingly lumbering, but seriously fast, seriously capable, still hurting over its untimely demise..Great series this.. cheers

I was there when it debuted back in 2017,what an aircraft,what a day it was!

Seen one at an air show, absolutely amazing

Recently in my area we had a flyover of these craft and the sound of these is just amazing and terrifying.

No Mirage in top 10?...that's sad

A remarkable aircraft 🤩👍

When will you include 1:The Mirage 2: The Sabre: 3: The Canberra : The Gloucester Meteor

Wonderful ❤

The raaf pilots these days get it easy when I flew we never had computers telling us what to do u got in buckled up and prayed that you came back in one piece!!!! They were the days when you got into a plane and flew by controlling it & not by a computer telling you what to do!!! Ok flight experience winjeel machhi 326 sabre - ca27 then mirage 3 out of Williamtown nsw !!! Thank you!!!

Very nice mate from Cambodia

What an absolute beauty of an aircraft. Bless Australia.

Saw one of them today, beautiful jet, good choice australia!

Had an F35 fly right overhead at Avalon this year, what a weapon 😍

Really looking forward to seeing one in person at Amberley Air Tattoo this year.

Wonderful ❤❤❤

We all know that we're going to go ahead as planned and make it an even 100, so let's place the order for 28 F 35B's and get the necessary conversions underway on the Canberra class LHD's. We need to if we want to keep China at bay.

No number 1 will be the F-111 then?

A great aircraft to be sure, but wouldn’t you say it’s a little early yet to declare it “iconic”?

Yeah,..I dont understand this decision? It certainly isn't iconic,...it barely has done anything yet. Only 30odd are in Australia and its barely made to a restricted IOC. You have picked an aircraft that has served for 5 minutes in the past 100 years! I hope the RAAF didn't choose this as a prop for a controversial aircraft. I assume the F111 will be number one. So aircraft like the Spitfire and the P40 miss out. Two aircraft that defended Australia and bore the brunt of fighting in the Pacific. Not to mention the RAAF SQN's such as 3 SQN in the Med that fought with all the MKs of the P40. Also Clive Caldwell, Australia's most prolific Fighter Pilot of WW2 flew both the Spit and P40 and became an ACE in both,...the only man to do so in two theaters. The Mirage III misses out, our first Mach 2 fighter. The Canberra Bomber misses out. Served in both Malaya and Vietnam without a break. The longest serving Bomber SQN on operations globally from the end of WW2 to the commencement on the War on Terror. Bobby Gibbes, Clive Caldwell, "woof" Arthur, the Jackson brothers, Lou Spence, Dick Cresswell,.....iconic names in the RAAF who flew truly iconic aircarft. All have been ignored for the sake of a glossy promotional moment for an aircraft that barely is in service. Terrible decision and in my view is defeats the point of remembering the past 100 years of the Royal Australian Air Force. You have picked an aircraft from the next 100 years. Its glossy advertising for the F35 , which is a bit of a disgrace. What is the RAAF's definition of iconic and history??

We love ❤️ Australia 🇦🇺

i'd love to join the airforce and fly one of those

Those planes are LOUD!!!!

Could we have some more please.

GO YOU GOOD THINGS

Seems a bit of a copout to name an aircraft that only reached IOC a few months ago, no matter how revolutionary.

Which raises the questtion what's after it? There are very few gen 5 aicraft actually flying and countries are now developing gen 6.

Iconic? Wow.

hi australia

RAAF F-35 will training with Malaysian SU-30 MKM soon also TUDM FA-18D Hornet,they said best Aircraft for best pilot but the best pilot always the best...Greetings from Malaysia.

#1 is definitely the CAC Boomerang

Interesting it's being called the lightning 2 when in 2019 any posters that had been printed with lightning 2 had to be thrown away and replaced with the ones printed JSF.

Hi RAAF, any idea if the F35 will be at the MotoGP this year?

Sounds like Peter Overton narrating

G’day, I just purchased a RAAF F-35A LIGHTNING II die cast model and doing an UNBOXING video, may I ask your permission to use some of your footage of our country’s F-35 to use in my UNBOXING VIDEO. It would be great to see the plane in flight. I hope you can positively respond to my request. Cheers mate.

Lockheed Martin: Congratulations. We be sure to add discounts for you. US: We need another squadron of F35Bs. Lockheed Martin: Sorry sir, the queue is full. Please wait for another time.

I would love to join the airforce and hopefully become a fast jet pilot but I’m only 14 I’m gonna study and work hard

Bring back the F111, we need a decent Bomber. We need them to fear Australia Again….or buy some B1’s

so the F-111 is more Iconic than the Spitfire and F-111 ok seems legit it should have gone spitfire 2 F-111 1

Hmm, I don't think so. About 5-10 years too soon to be considered iconic in my books. Most of us probably haven't seen one yet in the wild.

f-111 and f-35 lightning are the best of the royal australian air force excellent fighters of the raaf

Noice.

The AUS and USA will have to up their game a bit now that Russia has announced their new highly capable Checkmate fighter jet.

Anyone know who does the voiceover? Edit: never mind, says in the end credits

"I know what Aircraft I'd rather be in."

How many F-35A's are in squadron service with the RAAF at time of writing? Are any of them based in the far north, where they will be needed if they're needed at all? What's its real payload and range, under stealth? How much has it cost to upgrade bases in the north of Australia to provide the enormously elaborate facilities it requires? What are its actual availability and sortie rate figures, in RAAF service? It's on the answers to those questions and others about its real deployability and serviceability that its real value to Australia depends. It's not good enough to trot out a pilot or two to say how gosh-wow it is, if everything goes right. Far more important is how often does something go wrong? And how quickly is it fixed when it does?

We need a long range bomber fleet to replace the F111.24-36 Raider bombers at a billion each is very cheap compared to that lemon Sub deal.Just one B-21 would sink a fleet at very long range.

2:05 hope they’re not running windows and get the blue screen of death

Airmen ❤️🇦🇺

1 & 2 should have been Orion and F-111

Where's the love for the Herc.

Composer a fan of Eve Online soundtrack?

yes but can we afford to operate them at their phenomenal costs of operation per hour of flight time?

75 F35’s isn’t enough for the security of Australia. We need to double that, at least. 3 bases should we built . One in Northern WA QLD and NT. We cannot rely on the USA, so independence we must commit. Unstable areas in our region is growing ... rapidly

Should have brought Saab.

The F35 hasn't earned its place on this list. I can think of three aircraft that deserve to be the top 10 based on their service over the 100 year history and there is only one position to go. Personally, I'd put the CT4 above the F35 given that as the ab initio trainer for over 40 years (including its service at the ADF Basic Flying Training School) it has probably been flown by more RAAF pilots than any other aircraft.

The F-111 was the first RAAF aircraft I fell in love with.

What happens if the Aircraft gets damaged in a fight and the electronics die?

How is that possible? It’s just entered service.

What happens if the helmet breaks?

🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺

Thailand

Untouchable at Red Flag etc.

Get some f35b.

Over priced crap.

I was right. All this to promote this piece of shot. It’s was clear from the beginning, How the hell this mistake is iconic ? It wasn’t in service even 5 years. Oh yes I forgot, money.

Please Denmark buy more F-35 than 27 only 13 more.

The F-35 has more thrust than I put in my girlfriend

F22s so mush cooler

I hope we have modified the American design to actually work as it should. I thought this plane was supposed to be a complete dud.

We are f*cked.

Nuh, F111 looks better than em all

So it sounds like, F35 is designed for stealth (stealth over its own territory?), short range combat (USA's B variant is degisned to work with its navy fleets) what are our A variants for? And collective combat network (so, in other words we have to spend a lot of $$$ and send a lot of it out in order to receive the benefits?). It's almost like Aus is propping up US defence contracts, just like how it scrapped the very capable French sub deal just to re-align with US's naval capability. Peer pressure is one hell of a drug. Poor tax payers.

C'mon Mate! Do some of that pilot sh*t!

Look we understand the F-35 is the new toy but an Icon? Please. The Spitfire, Kittyhawk, Beaufighter all fought, Australians died in our own and foreign lands flying them are not? Even the Mirage which served as our front line fighter defende gets passed over for an aircraft still not fully capable. Very poor choice. I mean the Spitfire which defended Darwin... Seriously..

It’s rather slow compared to a Russian jet :/

Excuse me........f 35 iconic...Thats just dumb...thats just a flying fat van.Lets be honest..Second place as most iconic could be the spitfire or something else......my god..this shit is just propagandaaa........

Maybe you should tell the Australian public that it cost $800k for a helmet for this. Maybe you should tell the public that it's not really stealth. Maybe you should tell the public how maintenance heavy this F35 is. Even the Americans don't like this fighter jet and are considereding a replacement.

The ugliest fighter ever designed.

The F-35 is an absolute joke and has failed at every step of the way. Not to mention it's about 15 years late! It's a great example of how not to design an aircraft. A lesson that should have been learnt back with the developement of the F-111.