11 Fastest US Air Force Fighter Planes

10. Lockheed Martin Corporation (NYSE:LMT) F-35 Lightning II

Speed: 1,200 miles per hour
In Active Service since 2015

The first variant of the new 5th generation stealth fighter to be proclaimed combat ready was Lockheed Martin Corporation (NYSE:LMT)’s F-35B, an STOVL design for the United States Marine Corps. Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 121 (VMFA-121) announced that it had achieved operational status in August 2015. Some would say that being 21 years after the contract was signed and 9 years after the first unit was produced, not to mention $1.5 trillion in cost later, the F-35 project is the costliest failure in the history of United States weapon procurement. One fact that critics often overlook though is that the F-35 was designed to replace 4 different aircraft types currently in service (the F-16, A-10, F/A-18, and AV-8B), all with very different missions and capabilities, giving whole new meaning to the phrase “multirole fighter”. That alone makes it a miracle that the new airplane ever took to the sky, let alone at the speeds it did.