The Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II, result of the Joint Strike Fighter program, is the most advanced expression of military aircraft to perform close support and ground attack duties. Its extreme flexibility makes it suitable also to the "dogfighting" and to carry out missions of air superiority. The F-35 is a "Fifth generation jet fighter, with advanced stealth capability, that intended to replace a wide range of existing fighter , strike and ground attack aircraft of the Western Countries Air Forces. The development project is based on three main models: the F-35A is a convention take off and landing aircraft, the F-35B is a short take off an vertical landing variant, and the F-35C is a carrier based variant. Thanks to its external wing supports and its internal bays the “Lightning II” is able to carry a wide variety of offensive weapons such as clusters bombs, laser-guided and GPS-guided bombs, air-to-surface missiles and anti-ship missiles.