It has been 16 years since the Pentagon laid out a set of requirements—the blueprint—for the advanced stealthy strike fighter now known as the F-35 Lightning II. Ambitious plans called for the Air Force’s F-35A to be operational by now, before Russia or China could field their own stealth fighters.
Plans, unfortunately, have changed. Serious program delays have pushed scheduled deliveries well to the right. Today, no one expects the fifth generation F-35A to enter operational service before 2017, if then.
How much of the F-35’s postulated combat advantage will remain? By the time it reaches squadron service, will it still be a dominant fighter, relative to the rest of the world? In short, is the F-35A going to be worth the wait?
If the view of Lockheed Martin is any guide, the answer is emphatically yes. In a recent briefing for Air Force Magazine, the F-35’s developer offered important new details about the fighter’s stealthy design, employment concepts, modern air combat capabilities, and more.
The briefing, summarized here, offers what should be viewed as something close to a best-case scenario for the new fighter.
Lockheed Martin Vice President Stephen O’Bryan, the company’s point man for F-35 affairs, declared that the fighter meets requirements. A former Navy F/A-18 Hornet pilot, O’Bryan said the combat capability of even the earliest baseline model will greatly exceed that of the most heavily upgraded fourth generation fighters and strike aircraft, such as the F-15, F-16, and F-18.
The fighter’s capabilities will make it a three- or four-for-one asset, said the Lockheed briefers, meaning that it will be able to simultaneously perform the roles of several different aircraft types—from strike to electronic attack, from command and control to battlefield surveillance.
O’Bryan pointed out an important truth about air combat: Fourth generation strike aircraft assigned to hit targets guarded by modern anti-access, area-denial systems (A2/AD, in military parlance) require the support of “AWACS, electronic attack, sweep airplanes, SEAD” (suppression of enemy air defenses) aircraft and cruise missiles. Such a package could run to dozens of aircraft.
The same mission, he claimed, can be achieved with just a quartet of F-35s. Each would be capable of operations that go well beyond air-to-ground missions. The four-ship would be a potent factor in any scenario calling for the employment of airpower, O’Bryan asserted.
In short, he concluded, the F-35 is “the efficient package” for future strike missions, offering high probability of success with “lower probability of loss.”
“We’ve taken it to a different level,” O’Bryan said. The stealth of the production F-35—verified in radar cross section tests performed on classified western test ranges—is better than that of any aircraft other than the F-22.
This, he went on, is true in part because the conductive materials needed to absorb and disperse incoming radar energy are baked directly into the aircraft’s multilayer composite skin and structure.
Moreover, the surface material smoothes out over time, slightly reducing the F-35’s original radar signature, according to the Lockheed Martin official. Only serious structural damage will disturb the F-35’s low observability, O’Bryan said, and Lockheed Martin has devised an array of field repairs that can restore full stealthiness in just a few hours.