Trillion-Dollar Jet's Awesomely Bad Propaganda Videos

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The Pentagon's trillion-dollar family of fighter jets may be too big to fail. But they're not to big to rock out.

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is the military's hope for the stealth fighter jet of the future. The operative word is "hope." The F-35 program is in serious trouble. Development for the F-35 has already cost $70 billion; the Government Accountability Office estimates another $250 billion will be necessary (.pdf). Maintenance and other "life cycle" costs over the decades will send the F-35 over the trillion-dollar mark, making it the most expensive weapons program in human history. In addition, a host of design flaws mean the Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force keep having to wait until their F-35s join their air fleets. The Navy might be preparing for the F-35 -- considered too big to fail by many defense analysts -- to fail.

The Joint Strike Fighter's supporters, including contractor Lockheed Martin, have an answer: viral music videos.

No, seriously. YouTube is full up with jet-porn vids of F-35s flying at night, blasting off from a simulated carrier deck or pleasing its pilots, all set to a bombastic modern-rock soundtrack. The idea, apparently, is that when you hear a generic version of the Killers, you'll forget all about sticker shock and engineering mishaps and soar into the air, borne on the back of a fifth-generation fighter jet and propelled by a whammy bar. Here are our favorite F-35 videos.

Above:

Joint Strike Hipster

A classic of the genre. Lockheed actually hired a group of youthful musicians, attired them in skinny jeans, sweater vests, chunky glasses and hoodies, and had them learn a licensed piece of corporate rock. Watch irony and authenticity incinerate themselves in the F-35's afterburn. Bonus points for the Nirvana and "Keep Austin Weird" stickers.