Here is a little first hand info -
The X-36 is a fancy model airplane, shaped to look somewhat like a full scale airplane. This machine is a relatively low cost method of proving out the flight control laws required to make this aerodynamic configuration work.
This new freighter/heavy lifter proposal is a Ground Effects Machine operating exactly like the Soviet Ekranoplanes. The idea is to fly in ground effect where induced drag is about half of flight at altitudes more than a wingspan above the ground. This vehicle will operate like a ship, not a conventional airplane. The wasy Boeing is proceeding this vehicle would most likely be built in China or other #rd world country.
The MacDonnel Douglas submittal to the JSF competition had a lift engine. When a Marine general sits across the table and tells you that you will lose if your design has a lift engine, you'd think we would listen, especially given MDC's prior history of telling the customer what they need, instead of listening to them and figuring out what they want. Even if you can provide data that indicates the lift engine is not an operational probem, if the US doesn't wnat it, don't draw it in your proposals.
In early 1990 when I joined the A/STOVL (Advanced Short Takeoff, Vertical Landing) program, the MDC aircraft had a shaft coupled lift fan - pretty slick, except that no one in the world knew for sure how to build a "hypershaft" that was about 10 feet long, transmitting 25000 HP at about 1000 RPM. (Smaller hyuper shafts have been around on helicopters for a while, but they are tiny in comparison.) About March 1990 or so, a copy of the patent awarded to Lockheed came throught the office causing quiet panic amongst some of the program management - Lockheed's patent covers the aircraft from the top to bottom of the lift fan, down the drive shaft, and right out the flow diverters and nozzles. Okay, no big deal, we can still field a superior airplane, we will just pay Lockheed a license fee for the patent when we win -wrong, about a week later the program starts looking at the design of a gas coupled lift fan. This means pumping hot turbine air forward through the airframe to the lift fan, and driving a turbine wheel in the fan. This is hard. At this time A/STOVL still had a super cruise requirement (supersonic flight without afterburner), so the airframe cross section was sqeezed down to reduce supersonic wave drag. The problem is tht there isn't real estate left in the airframe for the hot air ducting to the lift fan. This is not good, we can't hang engines and other equipment on sky hooks (although the first cut at new design starts that way).
The other problem with the gas coupled lift fan, other than the thermodynamic inefficiency, was the temperature of the the exhaust gas. The fan exhaust was predicted to have a hot core of air at about 900F after it passed through the turbine - this is a problem on carrier decks. Well, if you ahve an exhaust temperature problem anyway, and probably can't make a gas coupled lift fan work in an airframe that meets the performace spec, then you might as well install a lift engine!
Shortly thereafter, your company gets bought by The Big B.
Everyone (the US, Britain, USSR, and Germany) has had some idea of radar signature reduction since the invention of RADAR - the target's radar cross section (RCS) is a key factor of the governing "RADAR Equation" (look it up on the internet, there are many sites with info). Dennis Overholzer's breakthrough was in recognizing an algorithm for calculating, and to some extent controlling, the specular component of RCS. Prior attempts at reducing RCS by capturing the incident energy were used on the U-2 and SR71, but mostly no one really had a good handle what to do about it. Anyway, "stealth" technology didn't come from the Russians.
Finally, I want to clear up some misconceptions about the JSF as it now stands. STOVL versions will go to the Marines, just 300 or so. The USAF buy is several thousands (maybe), and the USN buy is a couple of thousand or so - maybe. The Marines need a replacement for the AV-8B, and the USAF and USN got JSF jammed down ther throats. Without JSF, Marine Aviation is in big trouble. With JSF, the USAF and USN get a piss poor airplane. This is a generality of airplane design, but it might as well be Law Writ in Stone - aircraft designed for disparate missions will invariably have such poor, compromised performance as to be nearly unuseable, unless you just need machinery for airshows.
If this country doesn't get its aviation act together, we are going to be in the same boat as the UK, unable to design and field military aircraft of our own design (the AV-8B and T-45 are US redesigns of British airplanes, but all we started with was the basic configuration).
There is more, but I am tired of typing and I'm afraid I already exceeded the word limit - let's see ...