The F-35 - Bait & Switch - the Verdict Is In

It's gradually becoming apparent why countries buying the F-35 don't get a chance to flight test it first, especially up against its competitors.  The "why" is because it's less of a multi-role jet fighter than we've been told, a lot less.

The United States Air Force wants the F-35 bad, real bad.  The generals in blue want it so bad that they're doing everything possible to get rid of their current, close support aircraft, the A-10.

Cheap, Effective, but Definitely Not Sexy

The troops on the ground love the A-10, especially when they're pinned down in firefights with insurgents.  The A-10 can go slow enough that the pilot can see what's going on below.  It can carry a seemingly limitless load of cannon rounds, rockets and bombs.  It can loiter overhead a good long time and it's heavily armoured with twin engine redundancy which means it won't be readily driven off or shot down by hostile ground fire.

Did I mention the A-10 is slow?  Yeah and that's quite a problem for the USAF brass.  They like fast and sexy and the A-10 is definitely neither.  The A-10 is also a small fraction of the cost of the F-35 both on purchase price and costs to operate.  The F-35 is really, really, really expensive and, unlike the venerable A-10, it will never do what was promised.

The Air Force types, however, insist the F-35 can perform the close support role and the A-10 should be retired.  Except they don't mean it.  They're lying. They're gaming the system.

What the USAF brass have in mind emerged over the past week.  They want to get the full load of F-35s, around 1,700 of them, and then - wait for it - they would like to look at another warplane, something a lot like a new A-10, for the close support role, the ground pounding stuff.

They're going to pitch the F-35 as the perfect jet for defending the troops but it's not and for a lot of reasons.  The F-35 can't loiter over friendly troops, it doesn't have the fuel.  It can't carry the weapon load of an A-10 that gives both pilots and ground troops the options they need to survive.  It isn't armoured.  A hostile machine gun, well aimed, could open the F-35 like a can of soup.  The hot section of the F-35, the exhaust, is ridiculously hot, the perfect target for a shoulder-launched infrared missile (of which the Russians and Chinese have scads).  And, did I mention the F-35 has just the one engine?  No dual engine survivability which is bad news if you've just been stitched up by ground fire. One hit and your day could be over.  Oh yeah, there's that other thing - cost.  The F-35 just costs too damned much to be sacrificing them in support of ground troops.

The United States Air Force doesn't have the F-35 in mind for close support or, for that matter, other traditional fighter missions.  That claim was put to the lie this week when the generals started talking about getting their F-35s and then looking at cheap alternatives to replace the A-10.  In other words they want the F-35s and then a new, far cheaper replacement for the A-10.  All this business about the F-35 doing the close support mission (or, for that matter, air superiority), they're just pulling your chain.

For smaller nations like Canada this is pretty important.  We probably won't want to buy another fleet of warplanes to do what the F-35 really shouldn't be doing or simply can't do. In fact, the F-35 only does a couple of things well.  One of them is opening an attack on a country with sophisticated air defences which really comes down to two countries, Russia and China.

So, if the ground support mission is out what about aerial combat, dogfighting? Well the head of USAF Air Combat Command, General Mike Hostage, has said that any F-35 pilot who finds himself in a dogfight either did something very wrong or is just plain unlucky.  How's that for a confidence builder?

There's a lot to what general Hostage said.  If the F-35 gets caught in a dogfight the pilot did something wrong or is plain unlucky.  In other words, the F-35 isn't a dogfighter.  It's not intended to become engaged in a maneuvering fight with enemy fighters.  Should that happen the pilot did something wrong, he failed to evade the enemy's fighters.

In other words, the F-35 isn't really supposed to operate defensively in circumstances where the other side has the initiative and exercises control of the fight.  When the prospective adversary (Russia or China, your pick) has a large supply of fast, long range fighters that can out run, out turn and out climb the F-35 then the general is right.  If you get caught, your luck has run out.  Sounds like a hell of a fighter, doesn't it?

So we're getting glimpses of problems suggesting the F-35 isn't a close support strike fighter and it's not an air defence fighter or an air superiority fighter and it isn't a long-range, high-speed anything.  It is what it is, a light attack bomber.

In other F-35 news, another report from the Secretary of Defense detailing more problems with the F-35 development.  To paraphrase, the F-35 project team are cooking the books and salting the mine.  A few gems.  So far, two flights a week - maximum. Testing is being put off, deficiencies left uncorrected.  The fuel tank system that fills the wings and surrounds the engine is at "significant risk of catastrophic fire and explosion in combat" (that sounds "unlucky" alright ). Doesn't sound like the F-35 will fare too well where it could be exposed to hostile ground fire. It go BOOM! Verdict - the close support mission is out, no way.

Then there's the wing drop problem.  Turning at higher speeds causes "uncommanded wing drop" meaning the pilot gets to experience uncontrolled flight.  The report finds that wing drop can result in crashes and an inability to outmaneuver attacking fighters or their missiles (more "unlucky").  The saving grace is that you only have to worry about becoming unlucky twice a week because the airplane won't fly more than that.  Verdict - it ain't no dogfighter.

One notation that should send defence planners hackles up accuses Air Force brass of hiding today's failures while building a huge future cost "bow wave." In other words, the soaking you get when you buy the F-35 is just for starters.

By continuing to defer critical testing, crucial fixes, and promised capabilities, the JSF Program Office achieves two purposes essential for continued congressional funding: 1) creating the appearance of an “on-track” program, and 2) transferring to the distant out-years the major cost overruns incurred by today’s test failures and their resultant redesign and fleetwide retrofit expenses.

The expense of the deferred test flight hours is only the tip of the iceberg. Far more expensive are the redesign and fleetwide retrofit costs resulting from the shortcomings that inevitably emerge during those deferred flight tests. The longer those tests are deferred and the more we ramp up production now, the more expensive retrofits will be necessary for the larger fleet of flawed F-35s.

Verdict - what we know of the F-35's bloated price tag is just for starters and the actual costs are just going to keep going up while the actual performance goes steadily down.  If you can bear to read even more about the F-35's deficiencies and failures and how the US Air Force and Congress are greasing the wheels to keep this aircraft alive, here's a useful summary of the Defense Department report.

But what about the "fifth generation" F-35's vaunted stealth cloaking?  Over to Aviation Week's Bill Sweetman who points out that the effectiveness of stealth systems is being rapidly compromised.

Counterstealth technologies, intended to reduce the effectiveness of radar cross-section (RCS) reduction measures, are proliferating worldwide. Since 2013, multiple new programs have been revealed, producers of radar and infrared search and track (IRST) systems have been more ready to claim counterstealth capability, and some operators—notably the U.S. Navy—have openly conceded that stealth technology is being challenged.

These new systems are designed from the outset for sensor fusion—when different sensors detect and track the same target, the track and identification data are merged automatically. This is intended to overcome a critical problem in engaging stealth targets: Even if the target is detected, the “kill chain” by which a target is tracked, identified and engaged by a weapon can still be broken if any sensor in the chain cannot pick the target up.

It's a lengthy and technical article but the gist is that counter-stealth technology has made considerable advances undermining the effectiveness of the supposed stealth invincibility.

A final observation.  The F-35 is being sold as a breakthrough, a new warfare weapon system.  It doesn't need to be a dogfighter or a ground pounder or an interceptor.  It brings a new paradigm to aerial warfare.  To me it sounds like the sort of delusional thinking you can get sometimes from the military types.  I recall when the now-legendary F-4 Phantom entered service.  It came armed with radar and heat-seeking missiles but no gun.  The navy proclaimed that no gun was needed, the era of dogfighting was over.  Missiles would do that job now. They were wrong and American pilots found themselves in combat against Russian built Migs over North Vietnam, dogfighting with no gun.  Oopsie!  That changed quickly enough.  They hastily fitted a gun to the F-4, established the Naval Fighter Weapons School (Top Gun) and started running navy pilots through air combat (dogfighting) training.