‘Frankenjet’: This F-35A Lightning II made from two damaged aircraft just returned to Utah’s Air Force base

HILL AIR FORCE BASE, Utah (ABC4) — The F-35A Lightning II, also known as “Frankenjet” due to its construction from two separate, damaged aircraft, has returned home to Utah’s Hill Air Force Base.

Frankenjet is one of its kind — piecing together an AF-211 that was damaged in a nose-gear collapse at Hill AFB in 2020 and an AF-27 that was damaged in an engine fire at Florida’s Eglin AFB in 2014.

And the Frankenjet is fully operational, now back at the Air Force’s largest combat-coded F-35A wing at Hill Air Force Base.

“The Frankenjet is back,” Hill Air Force Base’s 388th Fighter Wing posted on Instagram. “After completing final maintenance in Fort Worth, Texas, this one-of-a-kind jet is now back where it belongs.”

The project was a joint effort by the F-35 Joint Program Office, Ogden Air Logistics Complex, and 388th Fighter Wing and Lockheed Martin, requiring unique tooling and equipment to merge the two aircraft. The construction was originally done at Ogden Air Logistics before it was brought back to Hill AFB.

Their work is considered to be pioneering for potential aircraft battle damage repair. The assigned team rebuilt the cockpit, rewired the aircraft, re-installed landing gear with the proper center of gravity, among other tasks that aren’t typically seen in flight line maintenance shops, according to the 388th Fighter Wing Public Affairs office.

“When we received the aircraft, it was pretty much a shell,” said Senior Airman Jaguar Arnold, the aircraft’s crew chief from the 4th Fighter Generation Squadron, where the aircraft was hangared in 2024. “There were a lot of tasks to complete that we hadn’t done before at the unit level.”

“When we took responsibility for this project, we were taking on something unprecedented at the field level and it wasn’t easy. That can’t be overstated.” said 1st Lt. Ryan Bare, Sortie Generation Flight commander for the 4th FGS. “But, we were also taking on an opportunity for our maintainers to gain proficiency in this type of work and build experience at the unit level. As a program, and as a unit, we’ve benefited greatly from this.”

The Airmen involved worked on so many first-time tasks that the information will be used to update data used by all F-35 maintainers for installing and inspecting new components. As for this project, the effort saved a reported $63 million, with the project costing $11.7 million — while a new F-35A costs more than $80 million.

Now operational with combat status, the Frankenjet will be flown by Utah’s 4th Fighter Squadron.

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