Two aerospace giants race to build the plane that will replace nearly every fighter jet in the American arsenal. NOVA goes inside Boeing and Lockheed Martin as their engineers compete for the Joint Strike Fighter contract, a deal worth more than 200 billion dollars and the largest in military aviation history. Boeing's X-32 and Lockheed Martin's X-35 take radically different approaches to the same problem: a single airframe that must work as a Navy carrier jet, an Air Force fighter, and a Marine Corps plane capable of landing like a helicopter. Cameras follow test pilots pushing prototypes through short takeoffs, vertical landings, and high-speed runs while engineers on the ground sweat over weight limits and lift-fan designs that could make or break a company's bid. Interviews with the program's designers and Pentagon officials lay out what is riding on the outcome, from thousands of jobs to the future shape of American air power. The film ends with the Pentagon's verdict and what losing means for the runner-up.