The U.S. Department of Defense has an ambitious plan to update the F-35.

And amid all the documents, discussions and details, there is one very important factor: the demand on the cooling system.

Since the fighter jet first took flight, the amount of cooling needed to control waste heat from its many electronic systems has doubled. And that demand will continue to grow, as officials add to the increasingly high-tech stack of sensors, jammers and other systems that make the F-35 what it is: a flying data center and command post. Or, as military officials sometimes call it, a 'quarterback in the sky.'

At the moment, the future F-35's cooling needs are out of reach. But they don't have to be.

To make them possible, two Raytheon Technologies businesses - Pratt & Whitney and Collins Aerospace - are proposing a pair of improvements: An upgraded power module for the engine that would boost performance and provide the compressed air the cooling system requires.

A new, optimized cooling system that uses compressed air more efficiently.

Combining those upgrades, company experts say, would give the F-35 a fast and cost-effective way to stay formidable for decades - well into the forthcoming era of even more advanced aircraft.

'The F-35 has to be not just equal to the near-peer fighter threat. It has to be superior,' said Rick 'Slash' Crecelius, a former F-35 pilot and retired U.S. Navy captain who now works as a director for customer integration at Pratt & Whitney. 'But technological advantage is a temporal thing. If we take too long, we start falling behind.'

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