Air Force ‘Frankensteins' Two Wrecked Aircraft Into Working F-35
More than a year ago, the U.S. Air Force took on the unique task of taking two wrecked aircraft and Frankensteining them together into one operational F-35A Lightning II. Now, after a whole lot of weird science, it's alive!
In late 2023, the F-35 Joint Program Office assembled a 'dream team' consisting of the 388th Fighter Wing, the Ogden Air Logistics Complex and Lockheed Martin. The mission: rebuild an AF-211 that lost its nose cone in 2021 using the front end of an F-35 that suffered a severe engine fire in 2014. The endeavor was affectionately called the 'Franken-bird' project.
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Scott Taylor, a lead mechanical engineer at Lockheed Martin, said his team was already looking into feasibility since it has already pulled off a restoration project on an F-22 with significant damage. But this was the first time trying something like this with an F-35.
'All of the aircraft sections can be de-mated and re-mated theoretically, but it's just never been done before,' Taylor told the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service. 'This is the first F-35 'Franken-bird' to date. This is history.'
The work involved re-installing landing gear, rewiring the aircraft, rebuilding the cockpit, and installing several components that don't often pop up in flight line maintenance shops. It involved completing several tasks that had never occurred at the field level, resulting in valuable updates to the technical data used by all F-35 maintainers.
On top of all that new proficiency, the project is estimated to have cost under $6 million dollars, way less than the typical $80 million shelled out for a new F-35A.
After completing a successful functional flight, the 'Franken-bird' is off to Texas for final certifications before returning to service.
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"If they are experiencing a power outage due to a severe weather event such as a hurricane, storm or wildfire, depleting your vehicle's battery to power your home could potentially put evacuation plans at severe risk." Customers of bidirectional chargers can also consider full interconnection. This technology feeds energy back into the grid (vehicle-to-grid, or V2G). McCreadie said it would require a software update and an interconnection agreement with a customer's utility. Not all vehicles with V2H capabilities also support V2G. "These batteries (in EVs) are so large, and the typical driver is only using a fraction of it every day," McCreadie said. "That leaves a lot left over to potentially put to good use for grid needs." That includes days when the power from the grid is flowing, but an EV owner could opt to power their home from their charged-up EV from overnight. They might do this to lower their bill, since electricity prices often are cheaper at night than during the day when there is more energy demand. Ford did a demonstration of this last year in Maryland. "A customer," McCreadie said, "can end up saving tens or dozens of dollars, even maybe as much as $100 per month in an extreme case on their electricity bill." V2G Interconnection also could allow electricity from plugged-in EVs to be sent back to the grid, similar to when residential solar panels produce more energy than is required by a homeowner. In return, a utility might offer an incentive or pay a rate to the EV owner for the electricity that could show up on their bill. Few utilities, however, currently offer these kinds of programs. The state of California is incentivizing bidirectional export compensation, and PG&E Corp., one of the country's largest electrical companies, is offering programs to support that. Detroit-based DTE Energy Co. says it's working with major automakers on bidirectional charging and is testing V2G technology with electric school buses since they typically are available when utilities need energy the most: during peak summer afternoons when demand is greatest. "This is an exciting, emerging technology that is still quite early in the development stage," spokesperson Ryan Lowry said in a statement. "As V2G technology matures, DTE will continue testing applications on the grid while expanding integration efforts, including evaluating export compensation, rate design, and tariffs to support customer participation and grid reliability." Michigan's largest electrical utility, CMS Corp.'s Consumers Energy, says since bidirectional charging technology isn't yet affordable or widely available for most customers, it doesn't offer any customer incentives. "Consumers Energy is committed making EV ownership convenient and affordable," spokesperson Brian Wheeler said in statement, "and we can see a point in a few years where we might play a role to support bidirectional charging as a benefit to customers and the grid." McCreadie said Ford is involved in efforts to lobby for these kinds of programs to residential customers. "There's a whole long story that has to do with net energy metering, and some of the battles that have been waged on what that export rate should be," McCreadie said. "And I think some similar things are happening or going to be happening right now with EVs." He added that power companies are motivated to offer these kinds of programs because peaker power plants that only operate during times of high energy demand are expensive and capital-intensive. Virtual power plant remedies like bidirectional charging eliminate some of the need to invest in more of those forms of generation. Collaboration for expansion A couple recently announced collaborations seek further development in this area. One is ChargeScape LLC, a joint venture among Ford, BMW AG, Honda Motor Co. Ltd. and Nissan Motor Co. Ltd. whose software platform connects EV customers with utilities and automakers, and Leapfrog Power Inc. that does business as Leap. Working together is expected to help automakers obtain information on grid demand and rates to leverage EVs as revenue-generating grid assets efficiently and at scale starting in California and expanding nationwide. The key to that is improving utilities' comfort with interconnection, which could unlock revenue earnings for EV owners of five to 10 times on an annual basis of V2H applications, Leap CEO Jason Michaels said. "There's incredible demand for this, especially if you look at the data centers that are expected to be interconnected," Michaels said. "You're talking about adding something that's equivalent to the entire state of California during the hottest heat wave in terms of load onto our grid. There's just not enough new generation that's available. Gas power plants can't be stood up in time to do it. Even solar and wind can't be deployed fast enough to meet that need. "There's a real need," he continued, "for this capacity to be participating in the grid, providing support and enabling load growth. And we need that load growth to help drive our economy, win the AI battle, have data centers and other things." Also last month,EV charger supplier ChargePoint Holdings Inc. and power management company Eaton Corp. plc announced a partnership toward creating a one-stop solution for EV charging equipment that supports bidirectional charging. "To make charging more accessible, you need access to charging infrastructure," Paul Ryan, Eaton's general manager of energy transition, said about addressing a major challenge to EV adoption. "You need more charges, whether that's on public corridor highways or in the homes. So, we need to be able to streamline this so it shouldn't be complicated. This partnership is focusing on innovation, streamlining installation and improving reliability." Hossein Kazemi, ChargePoint's chief technology officer for hardware, noted helping the country turn to EVs could double grid capacity in North America. "As the EV adoption continues," Kazemi said, "the need for the power from the utility is going to go up, and at some point, definitely the grid interactive features are going to be very important to have on the chargers." Copyright (C) 2025, Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Portions copyrighted by the respective providers.
