Why & How I F135 Fighter Aircraft Scale Turbofan Engine Kits? | Stirlingkit

Hi friends, long time no see. You must have seen the radial engine kit and turbojet kit I designed. Understand that I have made such efforts for their birth. But as a long-term mechanical engineer, my passion for manufacturing turbofan engines has not faded at all over the years. Even when I saw the F-35 fighter jet for the first time, my heart was completely ignited.

The F-35 is more than just an ordinary fighter jet, it represents the pinnacle of aviation engineering. I was attracted by its design and technology, especially the amazing Pratt & Whitney F135 engine that powers the F-35 fighter jet. This engine uses advanced materials science, turbomachinery design and combustion technology to provide the F-35 with outstanding performance. I deeply studied the origin, technical characteristics and working principle of the engine of the F-35 project. Gradually, I felt an unprecedented passion and impulse.


The F-35 fighter jet is a fifth-generation stealth fighter developed by the American company Lockheed Martin and launched in the 1990s. The main purpose was to develop an all-round fighter to replace the F-16, F/A-18 and other fighter jets to meet the needs of the United States Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps at that time. The project is viewed globally as a huge collaborative and technical challenge, attracting participation from countries including the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, the Netherlands, Australia, Norway, Denmark, Canada and Turkey. The project involves so many countries, the number of technical personnel involved, the amount of effort and energy expended... This technological miracle and the spirit of global cooperation are of great significance to the aviation industry! It's exciting! Passionate!

There are currently too few jet engine kits on the market, and there are even no models of the F-35 engine. As an experienced model engine engineer, I hope to create such a miracle. So I decided to challenge myself and build a model of an F-35 engine. This was more than just an ordinary project, it was a technical test for me and a tribute to the aircraft engines I have loved for so many years.

I started designing a scale model of a turbofan engine three years ago. During this period, I referred to countless pictures of military turbofan engine prototypes. Just restoring the appearance is not enough for the F-35. Studying its operating principles and showing them in their original form made me work hard to overcome this technical challenge. . I collected a lot of official information on the F-35 project from the JPO website, and compiled the technical specifications, test data and other information of the F-35 in detail. Even those newspapers that have reported on the F-35 special edition, such as Flight, Defense News, and Military Times, have been collected by me to get closer to the history and technology of the project. Authenticity of features. Of course, if you are interested, there has been a special report on the F-35 fighter jet in Discovery Channel's "Super Weapons" series. It is a very good documentary. It has an in-depth discussion of some technological innovations and testing processes in the project development. The pictures are vivid and very helpful to my understanding. It's very interesting, I recommend friends to learn about it, haha.

From 2020 to 2024, I continued to focus on the design and production of aircraft models. In the past few years, I have also received support and help from many colleges and airlines. They played an important role in the birth of the current F-35 engine model and deepened my understanding of aviation engines.
Although adequate preparations had been made in the early stage, unforeseen difficulties still arose during the actual implementation.
The F-35 engine is one of the core components of the aircraft. Its complex structure and precise craftsmanship bring great challenges to the production of the model. I needed to accurately recreate the shape and details of the engine and ensure that the model accurately simulated how a real engine operates. This requires me to continue learning and practicing, and constantly improving production technology and craftsmanship.
During the production process, I encountered many technical difficulties.

For example, when simulating the rotating parts of an engine, I need to accurately calculate the size and position of each part to ensure they align accurately and operate smoothly. This requires me to have superb skills and patience, and continue to debug and modify until the ideal effect is achieved. Among them, the most difficult to deal with are the leaves.



First of all, the design of the blades is complicated, especially the first-level blades. Since all 22 blades are underturned and twisted together, it is very difficult for the tool to cut the mold. These unsolvable problems cannot be solved simply by using technologies such as 3D printing. But we are trying to figure out how to overcome it and try to make it as real as possible. Efforts were made to maintain original features to represent the characteristics of an authentic aircraft engine. I won't say that it is simplified to solve the difficulty of manufacturing.

Secondly, when making an aircraft engine model, we must not only pay attention to the details of the appearance, but also consider the principles of the aircraft engine. For example, if a part is designed in two halves, the engine principle may not hold true, the failure rate may increase, and the entire engine may even fail.
An important parameter of an aeroengine is thrust, which is the ratio of the thrust produced by the engine to its own weight. Aeroengines often need to be as light as possible, but while maintaining strength, attention needs to be paid to design details, such as adding metal supports to strengthen the structure. So we try to reduce the weight of the aircraft engine as much as possible. And using metal to build the outer wall, the model must be made very thin, but the strength will not be reduced. We stacked the two channels through the construction of three layers of walls. The inside-outside ratio of civil aviation is 3:7, but in order to be more consistent with the engineering principles of the F-35, we made the ratio to a level of 7:3 to increase the number of channels. power. In this way, the split fans suck in air from the outer flight and the inner flight respectively, compress and burn it to generate thrust.

Finally, unlike traditional piston engines, this model adopts a miniaturized design and is no longer four-cylinder, but eight-cylinder. The low-pressure compressor is divided into three stages, including a first-stage fan and a two-stage low pressure compressor. The high-pressure machine has six stages. The more stages, the higher the compression ratio. Therefore, the design of the compressor needs to consider the internal structure, including controller, oil valve, oil pump, etc. As for the one-stage fan, two-stage low-pressure compressor, six-stage high-pressure compressor, six-stage high-pressure compressor, one-stage high-pressure turbine, and two-stage low-pressure turbine, this is the arrangement of the entire core machine. It's the same as the real F35.

The model's outer shell is designed to facilitate maintenance, and the internal structures including sensors, oil pipes, etc. need to be encapsulated in the inner channel. At the same time, we use stainless steel to simulate oil pipeline lines, similar to wiring. There are about a dozen of them, with a diameter of no more than one millimeter. In addition, I also need to choose appropriate materials and tools to ensure the quality and accuracy of the model. I spent a lot of time and effort finding the most suitable materials, experimenting and comparing to ensure the durability and realism of the model.