The $300+ billion, multi-national F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program is the largest single military program in history. It’s also reaching a critical nexus. In order to keep costs under control and justify the industrial ramp up underway, participating countries need to sign order agreements soon. The problem is that the F-35 is not a proven fighter design, with a demonstrated baseline of performance in service. It’s a developmental aircraft in the early middle of its test program, which is now scheduled to continue until 2018 or even 2019.
As one might expect, this status makes the F-35 a controversial long-term bet in many of the program’s member countries. Costs aren’t certain, numbers ordered are slipping in many countries, timelines aren’t certain after numerous schedule delays. With combat testing still a year or 2 away, even operational performance isn’t certain. That’s especially consequential for air forces that expect to field the F-35 as their only fighter.
September 2008 featured a very public set of controversies around the F-35′s air combat performance. Many partner countries were beginning to make decisions about their long-term needs, so the altercation in Australia became a controversy with implications, and responses, that reached well beyond that continent’s shores. The RAND study that triggered it didn’t specifically address the F-35, but it does have implications for the F-35′s projected performance – and for the heart of the USAF’s current fighter force concept.
This article takes a much closer look at the RAND Pacific Vision study, while bringing in other opinions, analyses, and subsequent developments. Understanding the F-35′s real air superiority potential and weaknesses, and their implications for partner nation participation, has only grown in importance since 2008.
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