F-35 Lightning II fighter jet pilots will wear $400,000 helmets

The F-35 Lightning II is one of the most complicated weapons systems ever developed, a sleek and stealthy fighter jet years in the making that is often called a flying computer because of its more than 8 million lines of code. The Joint Strike Fighter comes in three versions, including one that is designed to take off and land on an aircraft carrier and another that lands vertically, as if it were a helicopter.

But to truly understand the most expensive weapons program in the history of the Pentagon, forget the plane for a minute. Consider the helmet.

It's designed to protect the pilot's head, of course. But compared to everything the helmet does, protection becomes something of an afterthought.

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