It would appear the F-35 doesn't suck as bad as a lot of people claim

As in, maybe not even close. In fact, the F-35 is looking pretty good to a lot of people. The Marines would like to get the F-35 faster than planned:

PARIS — The Marine Corps, which plans to purchase hundreds of F-35 joint strike fighters, wants them to be delivered quicker, the service's deputy commandant for aviation said June 20 at the Paris Air Show.
“We could use airplanes faster,” said Lt. Gen. Jon M. Davis, who will be retiring in a few weeks. “We’re flying some of the oldest tactical aircraft — the strike fighters — in the naval inventory.”

On top of that, a whole bunch of U.S. allies want to buy the plane, as well:

Canada is poised to buy 65 F-35 fighter jets built by Lockheed Martin Corp, sources familiar with the process told Reuters, which would make it the 11th country to join the program.
The United States and its allies plan to buy more than 3,100 F-35s in coming years to replace aging F-16s, F/A-18s and other warplanes.

So, 11 countries want to buy 3,100 F-35s knowing that it sucks? Hey, maybe it doesn't suck. In fact, at the recent Paris air show, the F-35 pretty much proved that it doesn't suck. Check it out:



Holy fuck. That plane can fly.

The Marines apparently like the F-35 so much they want it faster

Yeah, this is a couple weeks old, but I've been as busy as a one-legged man at a butt-kicking contest with this God-awful project, so sue me for being late. But the head of Marine aviation wants the F-35 delivered faster than is scheduled:

The pace at which the Marine Corps is getting its new F-35B Joint Strike Fighter aircraft is “anemic,” the service’s head of aviation said this week, adding that the Corps could handle a much faster ramp-up.
Speaking to reporters at the Pentagon on Tuesday, Lt. Gen. Jon “Dog” Davis, deputy commandant of aviation, spoke highly of the Corps’ new fifth-generation aircraft. The first Marine F-35B squadron, Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 121, relocated to Japan in January in a transition that Davis said was smooth and without incident.
Right now, he said, the Marine Corps owns 50 F-35Bs in two operational squadrons, one training squadron, and a test unit. The service declared initial operational capability for the aircraft in 2015.

By the way, those are really small squadrons. Standard squadron strength used to be 24 aircraft plus spares. It is down to 16 planes for F-35 equipped squadrons now. If you want to plow through some really boring minutiae from the government about Marine air, it's here. Lt. Gen. Davis seems to really want more F-35s, faster:

Davis said he believes the Corps could accept up to 37 aircraft a year, between two and three squadrons’ worth. The current transition plan has the service receiving the last of the 353 F-35B and 67 F-35C aircraft it plans to buy in 2031, a rate that works out to fewer than 30 aircraft a year. The sped-up plan would see the Marine Corps complete its F-35 transition five years early.

The current schedule seems to keep planes like the AV-8B, Harrier (a vertical take-off and landing fighter), the FA-18 Hornet (a carrier-based fighter) and the EA-6B Prowler, an electronic-warfare aircraft that uses the Vietnam-era airframe of the A-6 Intruder carrier-based fighter, in service for a long damn time. The F-35 in its many variants is supposed to replace all of these aircraft, some of which, obviously, are more than 50 years old. More F-35s faster is a good idea in that respect. Also, the unit cost goes down the faster the planes are produced because of economies of scale.

Whether that happens remains to be seen. I wouldn't bet on it though.

It is possible that the "F-35 Sucks" crowd might have just taken a kick to the nuts.

I still oppose the "one size fits all" approach of the F-35, using the same air frame to be a strike fighter, dogfighter and carrier fighter, because I think that different roles require different airplanes. I am not alone in this. I have, however, been a defender of the F-35 as the next fifth-generation fighter aircraft for the U.S. military. While the cost for the program is high, the cost per unit is dropping and could drop a lot more as the production ramps up. This sort of thing makes me believe that the plane is worth it:

\Exercise Red Flag at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada is considered one of the most realistic and challenging aviation warfare exercises, and pilots from this year's event say the Air Force's F-35A exceeded expectations by dominating the air space and improving the lethality of other legacy aircraft. It's stellar performance is a major victory for a war plane that's been criticized for its high costs and plagued with several development setbacks.
Running from January 23 to February 10, this year's Red Flag involves more threats to pilots than ever before, including surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), radar jamming equipment, and an increased number of red air, or mock enemy aircraft. Against the ramped-up threats, the F-35A only lost one aircraft for every 15 aggressors killed, according to Aviation Week.
The F-35 Lightning II's advanced avionics software was the star of the show, as multiple F-35s successfully compiled data into a detailed layout of the battlefield with each individual threat pinpointed. The stealthy aircraft could then slip into weak spots in the defensive layout and take out SAM targets, opening up the space for follow-on forces of legacy fighters. Even when the F-35s ran out of munitions, F-22 and fourth-generation fighter pilots wanted the aircraft to remain in the combat zone, soaking up data and porting target info to the older fighters.

It sounds like the F-35 is doing what it is supposed to be doing -- not simply dominating the battle space by itself, but allowing fourth-generation fighters to dominate the battle space with the assistance of the sensors and avionics of the F-35.

It is important to remember that the F-35 is our second fifth-generation fighter. The first, the F-22, is probably in many ways a superior aircraft, but it costs far more to operate per hour than any other aircraft in the U.S. inventory. As good as the F-22 is, it lacks the advanced avionics of the F-35 simply by virtue of being older. It can be upgraded, and will be -- as will fourth-generation fighters such as the F-18, F-16 and F-15 airframes, which will need upgrades to benefit from the data provided by F-35s participating in the mission.

Working in concert with the F-35, our best current aircraft -- already the envy of the world -- will be that much better and should give any foreign military pause if the consider challenging us. Hello, Russia and China, I'm talking to you. The next problem, of course, is where these aircraft will be based. The problem areas tend to be farther from us than from our enemies. One hopes that good minds are considering these obstacles as we speak.

Is the F-35 in trouble because of this? I don't know, but I doubt it.

Before I even get started on this post, I really wish somebody would do something really nice for me, because going through the GAO report on this issue was torture. Like all other government agencies, the GAO doesn't use 10 words when 100 will do. Despite all of that verbosity, it seems clear that the GAO thinks that the F-35 program has serious problems.

But I don't think so, at least not in the same way the GAO does. The General Accounting Office, which is a bean-counting agency, not a military agency, seems to have issued a report revealing problems with the F-35's computerized logistics system. For God's sake, don't try to read the entire thing. It will kill you. Still, please note that this system, known as ALIS, has no actual impact on the F-35's ability as a fighter aircraft in any direct sense.

Nonetheless, The Daily Mail, a liberal rag in the United Kingdom, has blown this report up as some sort of death sentence for the F-35. I have spent a considerable amount of time with the GAO report, and I disagree. It's not great, but it is the sort of reporting you would expect from a newspaper that does not want the U.K. to purchase the F-35 from the United States. Further, it is the sort of report you might expect about an extremely expensive weapons system from an extremely liberal administration that really doesn't want to buy weapons systems.

While the GAO is supposed to be nonpartisan, so is the Environmental Protection Administration, and I don't think anyone believes that, either. Career government jobs are held primarily by liberals -- conservatives go to the private sector and make a lot more money in exchange for less security -- and under the Obama administration, of course, the appointed heads of those agencies are as liberal as they come. So take "nonpartisan" with a grain of salt.

So what is the report about? The Autonomic Logistics Information System is described in the GAO report as "a complex system that supports operations, mission planning, supply-chain management, maintenance, and other processes." Please not that the system does not control the airplane itself in any way. ALIS is a highly sophisticated system that keeps maintenance crews updated on needed maintenance, pilots updated on mission plans, logistics personnel updated on what materiel is needed to support upcoming missions and the like. All very important tasks. Enough to ground the plane, as The Daily Mail and the GAO claim? Maybe not. Let's dig deeper.

The Daily Mail focuses on software problems and the fact at the ALIS system relies on a central server that is not located at the same place as the aircraft, which can complicate things in remote locations:

So far, the software has been so flawed that maintenance crews have had to resort labour-intensive alternatives.
According to National Interest, in one instance maintainers had to manually burn data onto CDs and to send the massive files across a civilian WiFi network.
One major problem, the report said, is that the F-35 data produced goes through a single main operating unit which has no back up.

National Interest, a pretty good publication on national security that is cited by The Daily Mail, goes into a bit more detail:

ALIS is the ground-based computer system meant to diagnose mechanical problems, order and track replacement parts, and guide maintenance crews through repairs. It also allows pilots to plan missions and later review their performance. At least, it’s supposed to do all of those things. So far, the software has been so flawed that maintenance crews have had to resort to time-consuming workarounds. In one instance, maintainers even had to manually burn data onto CDs and drive off base to send the massive files across a civilian WiFi network.

So ALIS is supposed to help ground crews keep the aircraft up and running while also assisting pilots in evaluating their mission performance. Worthy goals. Even National Interest, though, while criticizing the failures of ALIS, acknowledges that the problems can be dealt with.

Ultimately, ALIS will be fixed. The GAO's main gripes with the system actually are not that it doesn't work, per se, but that there are not redundant backups and that it might be hard to use in remote locations:

The Department of Defense (DOD) is aware of risks that could affect the F-35’s Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS), but does not have a plan to ensure that ALIS is fully functional as key program milestones approach. ALIS users, including pilots and maintainers, in GAO’s focus groups identified benefits of the system, such as the incorporation of multiple functions into a single system. However, users also identified several issues that could result in operational and schedule risks. These include the following:

• ALIS may not be deployable: ALIS requires server connectivity and the necessary infrastructure to provide power to the system. The Marine Corps, which often deploys to austere locations, declared in July 2015 its ability to operate and deploy the F-35 without conducting deployability tests of ALIS. A newer version of ALIS was put into operation in the summer of 2015, but DOD has not yet completed comprehensive deployability tests.

• ALIS does not have redundant infrastructure: ALIS’s current design results in all F-35 data produced across the U.S. fleet to be routed to a Central Point of Entry and then to ALIS’s main operating unit with no backup system or redundancy. If either of these fail, it could take the entire F-35 fleet offline.

DOD is taking some steps to address these and other risks such as resolving smaller ALIS functionality issues between major software upgrades and considering the procurement of additional ALIS infrastructure but the department is attending to issues on a case-by-case basis. DOD does not have a plan that prioritizes ALIS risks to ensure that the most important are expediently addressed and that DOD has a fully functional ALIS as program milestones draw close. By continuing to respond to issues on a case-by-case basis rather than in a holistic manner, there is no guarantee that DOD will address the highest risks by the start of full-rate production in 2019, and as a result, DOD may encounter further schedule and development delays, which could affect operations and potentially lead to cost increases.

These are legitimate gripes. They also ignore the fact that, until very recently, aircraft maintenance, supply chain and the other functions of ALIS were performed without a computer program telling everyone what to do, step by step. While ALIS obviously simplifies those tasks, those tasks somehow got accomplished before ALIS existed, pretty much since the dawn of combat aviation. Go figure.

The problem here is that GAO, as a bean counter organization, is looking at the potential cost to "fix" ALIS, a project the GAO estimates at $20 billion to $100 billion. That's a pretty broad range, indicating that the GAO really has no fucking idea what needs to be done to "fix" ALIS or what that will cost. The total life-of-program cost of the F-35 is $1.3 trillion, $900 billion of which is operations and sustainment -- the costs to keep the plane in the field. It is not at all clear that the cost to "fix" ALIS, to the extent that it is actually broken, will exceed the initial $16.7 billion cost of ALIS. If that is the case, doubling the cost of having a redundant ALIS system that works in remote areas would be little more than a rounding error in the total program cost. I'm not saying the total program cost was a great idea -- anyone who reads this blog knows I am not a believer in one-size-fits-all aircraft -- but if we're spending that kind of coin, it won't kill us to spend a little more to get it right.

The Department of Defense has spent a lot of time telling Congress and others that ALIS is a critical component of the F-35 that makes the plane worth the price. That might be true, or it might not. We're probably too far along in the program to throw the whole thing out, but I don't think logistics software, which has no impact on combat performance in any direct sense, would make it worth grounding the fleet. I'm sure there are things that ALIS does that are classified and wonderful, but there obviously are ways around the shortcomings the GAO cites. Fixes will come, and they will cost money. But I wouldn't bet on any of the problems cited in the GAO report resulting in a halt to the F-35 program, or even a grounding of the fleet.


Hat tip to Hot Air.

Oh, God help me, more military shit coming -- and electric cars still suck

I am working on a post on the latest problems with the F-35, which some papers are attempting to make sound like program-enders. I don't think so at all, but I am still reading the very lengthy report from the Government Accounting Office. I don't know whether to do a post or claw my eyes out so I don't have to read any more. In any event, while you wait breathlessly, by all means check out this post in case you were thinking about buying an electric car.

Apparently India can't decide whether to shit or get off the pot when it comes to aircraft purchases

India has a long history of buying Russian (or Soviet) aircraft. In recent years, though, they have been all over the map. India's military has Russian (or Soviet), French, American, British, Brazilian, Indian, Canadian and Swiss aircraft, ranging from trainers to airborne tankers to transports to fighters.

In recent years, the country has been looking for bids for its  Medium Multi-role Combat Aircraft, and effort to upgrade (through replacement) some of India's aging aircraft, primarily MiG-21s. That effort has been abandoned, but India has been negotiating with France to buy 36 Rafale fighters. Those talks apparently are not going well:

The Indian air force will not be receiving new Rafale fighter jets anytime soon. Despite a unique intergovernmental agreement signed by India and France in January committing to conclude a deal for 36 fully fitted Rafale jets, negotiations remain stuck on the value of the order. This is a stunning situation, bordering on the absurd. Price was precisely what bedeviled the possibility of an agreement for 126 fighters in India’s notoriously long but finally aborted Medium Multirole Combat Aircraft (M-MRCA) contest.

It would appear that India and France agreed that India would buy 36 of France's fifth-generation Rafale fighters (if you believe France -- they likely are no better than 4.5-generation, like the FA-18 Super Hornet) but failed to agree on the price. India now wants to pay a lot less than France wants to charge. It might be a commentary on how much India wants to spend on its military, but it also might be a commentary on how close other countries are to having truly fifth-generation fighters for sale. It looks a lot like the U.S. might be the only nation currently offering such a product, which bodes well for the future of the F-35. We'll see.

The verdict on the F-35, while still incomplete, looks much better

The F-35 is America's new 5th-generation fighter. There have been a lot of criticisms of the aircraft, largely claiming that the plane's "do-everything" role leads to it doing nothing well. I think there likely is a certain amount of validity to that criticism -- no way can the F-35 do close air support as well as the A-10, which is why the Air Force has delayed the retirement of the aircraft -- but one of the most prominent criticisms has centered around the F-35's air-to-air combat capabilities, as noted here, here, and here.

A very well-qualified voice recently spoke out about the F-35 as an air-to-air fighter, and he sounds like a fan. He is a Norwegian test pilot with a lot of experience in the F-16, to which the F-35 is often unfavorably compared. Norway, a NATO ally, is one of the main customers for the F-35 Lightning II. This pilot is impressed, and his credentials are impeccable:

Kampflybloggen (The Combat Aircraft Blog), the official blog of the Norwegian F-35 Program Office within the Norwegian Ministry of Defence, has just published an interesting article, that we repost here below under permission, written by Major Morten “Dolby” Hanche, one of the Royal Norwegian Air Force experienced pilots and the first to fly the F-35.
“Dolby” has more than 2,200 hours in the F-16, he is a US Navy Test Pilot School graduate, and currently serves as an instructor and as the Assistant Weapons Officer with the 62nd Fighter Squadron at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona.
He provides a first-hand account of what dogfighting in the F-35 looks like to a pilot who has a significant experience with the F-16. His conclusions are worth a read.

"Dolby" sounds pretty sold on the F-35 to me;

The F-35 provides me as a pilot greater authority to point the nose of the airplane where I desire. (The F-35 is capable of significantly higher Angle of Attack (AOA) than the F-16. Angle of Attack describes the angle between the longitudinal axis of the plane — where nose is pointing — and where the aircraft is actually heading — the vector). This improved ability to point at my opponent enables me to deliver weapons earlier than I am used to with the F-16, it forces my opponent to react even more defensively, and it gives me the ability to reduce the airspeed quicker than in the F-16.
Update: Since I first wrote this post, I have flown additional sorties where I tried an even more aggressive approach to the control position — more aggressive than I thought possible. It worked just fine. The F-35 sticks on like glue, and it is very difficult for the defender to escape.

The rest of the longish report is similarly favorable. It is worth reading the entire thing. I have said previously that the F-35 is ill-suited for carrier operations, because no pilot flying over water far from land wants only one engine. I think the aircraft is ill-suited for close air support functions because it moves too fast and carries too little ordinance. It's can't compare to the A-10. However, it is becoming more likely that the criticisms of the plane as an air-to-air fighter are not particularly valid. More data is needed, but the F-35 looks like it might be pretty good at some of the roles it is being given. I believe it still highlights the foolishness of one-size-fits-all aircraft, but it might not be the unmitigated disaster some are trying to portray it as.

Fifth-generation fighters aren't as easy as they sound

It would appear that Russia is having as much trouble with its fifth-generation fighter aircraft as the U.S. is, given recent reports. Granted, America's latest fifth-generation effort, the F-35, has its problems, as we have mention here, here, and here,  But Russia is approaching the effort from a different starting point. The F-35 has problems because it is intended to fill all roles for all services, which is an unrealistic goal for an aircraft. Not sure why anyone would think that is a good idea, but that is the basis of the F-35 program, so the aircraft is destined for mediocrity at any given role, even if it is adequate at all roles.

The problem for Russia's fifth-generation fighter is different, but equally predictable:

Reporting from the Singapore Airshow 2016, IHS Jane's reports that "Russian industry has consistently referred to the Sukhoi T-50 PAK FA as a fifth-generation aircraft, but a careful look at the program reveals that this is an 'in name only' designation."
This is largely because of a lack of evolutionary technology aboard the plane compared with previous jets that Russia and the US have designed. Indeed, the PAK FA's engines are the same as those aboard Russia's 4++ generation (a bridging generation between fourth- and fifth-generation aircraft) Su-35. Additionally, the PAK FA and the Su-35 share many of the same onboard systems.

 Russia simply doesn't have the technology to field a truly fifth-generation fighter. We might field a fifth-generation fighter, such as the F-35, that can't do everything it is intended to do better than any other fighter in the world, but the F-35 likely will perform any of its individual roles better than any fighter any other nation might be able to put into the air.

For instance, while the F-35C might or might not be the best-ever vertical-takeoff fighter -- I suspect the AV-8B Harrier was better -- it likely is better than anything any of our enemies can put in the field, and by enemies I mean Russia and China, the only potential enemies we have who can field more than armed crop-dusters. Likewise, the F-35 might not be better at ground-support than the A-10 -- an excellent reason to keep the A-10, by the way -- or at air-superiority than the F-15 -- also an excellent reason to keep the F-15 -- but I suspect it will be better at both roles than any aircraft any one else has.

My doubts creep in with respect to ground-support, as the A-10 is magnificent in that role, but I suspect the F-35 is adequate. I don't think that is the standard, of course, but we seem to have settled for that. I would prefer role-specific aircraft that are the best at what they do, but that appears to not be the direction the US is heading in. Pity.

Fortunately, our opponents appear to suck at creating opposing aircraft to take the sky against us. For instance, their stealth aircraft may be something less than that:

The question of stealth is one of the largest factors influencing perceptions of the PAK FA. In 2010 and 2011, two estimates from individuals close to the program estimated that the plane's radar cross section would be 0.3 to 0.5 square meters, RealClearDefense notes.
In comparison, the US Air Force has hinted that the radar cross section of the F-22 is as small as 0.0001 square meters. The F-35's RCS is larger, but it is still minuscule when compared with that of the PAK FA, as it has an RCS of roughly 0.001 square meters.

I guess we'll see how this all plays out. Frankly, I hope we don't, since that would mean our aircraft meet in combat, which can only turn out badly in a strategic sense. To the extent that we have an advantage over Russia, I can only assume we have at least that large of an advantage over China, which usually buys aircraft from Russia and them copies them, either under license or otherwise. For the moment, I believe we still hold an edge technologically. Continuing to squander that edge on stupid shit like do-everything aircraft, though, might not be the way to go. Just because the aircraft is OK at everything doesn't mean we should use it for everything. Our enemies won't be behind us forever.

The Fiscal Times gets punked on the F-35

The Fiscal Times, widely viewed as a conservative publication, appears to have been suckered with respect to the F-35. Relying heavily on a "study" by the National Security Network -- and not much else -- the FT reported recently that the F-35 is a dog and a waste of money. The problem with relying on a defense spending study by the NSN, of course, is that they self-describe as "progressive" and are basically opposed to defense spending in general. Reading the FT article gives no indication that the "study" had any actual basis in fact. The article simply regurgitates the "conclusions" of the "study" while ignoring that the study does not actually include any facts:

A new report by a progressive think-tank says the astronomically expensive F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is inferior compared to other “near-peer” competitors and will be mismatched against emerging threats.
The study by the National Security Network states the jet, the most expensive weapons system in U.S. history, will not only be outmaneuvered and outgunned by Russian and Chinese aircraft but will also be limited in range and its stealth capabilities will be easily overcome.

Normally, when reading a couple paragraphs like that, you would expect to see somewhere in the article facts and figures supporting those assertions about how the F-35 is about to get it's ass kicked. The report claims that the F-35 can't dogfight with top Russian and Chinese fighters -- a proposition unproven, because the testing restrictions haven't been lifted on the F-35 yet in the dogfighting tests conducted. Further, the F-35 has only been tested against the F-16, and the top Russian and Chinese fighters also cannot compete with the F-16. With all restrictions on testing lifted, it is not at all clear that the F-35 is not a superior dogfighting aircraft compared to the F-16 and, by extension, any foreign aircraft it might have to face. Finally, the F-35 is not designed to go head-to-head, fangs-out in a dogfight with another plane. It is designed to kill the other plane before the other plane knows the F-35 is even there.

On this front, too, the NSN "study" claims the F-35 fails, based once again on speculation, not actual study:

[T]he F-35’s stealth avionics and sensors might not make much of difference against the fighters operated by Russia and China, since those countries have made strides in radar, computing, and infrared sensor technology, the NSS report states.

Presumably, the NSN is referring to the Russian T-50 and the Chinese J-20, those nations attempts at fifth-generation fighters. Well, they ain't doing so hot. For China, the problem is engines:

Engines are a critically important component of any fighter aircraft, and they present Chinese airplane manufacturers with a dilemma. Their new fifth-generation fighter prototypes, the Chengdu J-20 and Shenyang J-31, sport sophisticated airframes and avionics that are clearly intended to make them a match for the United States’ most advanced aircraft. However, China’s ability to manufacture jet engines has not kept pace with other sectors of its aerospace industry. Regardless of how capable other Chinese aircraft systems may be, without a reliable, high-performance turbofan engine to power them, both the J-20 and the J-31 will be crippled.

The Chinese can't make good jet engines. Period. And their fighters will only be as good as their engines -- or the better engines they can buy from the Russians. If you think the Russians will sell China enough jet engines to make China's air force a threat to Russia, you really haven't been paying attention.

As for the Russians, their plane is being test-driven by a potential customer, and the customer is not happy:

Russia’s new T-50 stealth fighter is fast, maneuverable, heavily-armed and hard to detect on radar. In theory.
But according to Indian air force officials, in practice the Sukhoi-made stealth jet is also too expensive, poorly engineered and powered by old and unreliable engines.
The Indians’ complaints illustrate the yawning gulf between stealth warplane design and the actual production of radar-evading jets. In other words, it’s one thing to sketch an advanced warplane on paper. It’s quite another to build one and get it to work.

The fact is, National Security Network is a left-wing, self-describe progressive group that opposes defense spending. Any "analysis" they conduct will conclude, without exception, that U.S. spending on (fill in the blank here with the most expensive U.S. weapons system of the day) is foolhardy because it can't compete with whatever whoever is already putting in the field. The fact is, the F-35 is a more capable fighter than the F-16 and the F-15. It certainly is a more capable fighter than anything our enemies can put in the air,  now or in the foreseeable future. We're better at this shit than they are.

Should we have put all of our eggs in one basket and made the F-35 a one-size-fits-all fighter for every military branch? No. Almost undoubtedly not. Should we have stopped production of the F-22 air superiority stealth fighter? Absolutely not. But we did, on both counts. We're stuck with the F-35, because nothing we have in the inventory can stay in the air long enough to develop a different replacement. We should keep the A-10 for close air support, and we should renew production of the F-22 for air superiority, and let the F-35 fill the role of the F-16. It is not a bad aircraft. Can we do better? Yeah, probably. But not soon, and not if we try another one-size-fits-all approach.  We need to return to procuring aircraft designed for a particular role. In the meantime, quit worrying about the F-35: no one we are likely to fight anytime soon, including Russia and China, can match it.

Basically, The Fiscal Times got taken in by a group with essentially no military expertise. The NSN starts from the premise that defense money is better spent on more "progressive" goals, like single-payer health care or some such, and then trashes defense spending in general under the guise of a "study" that had its conclusion before it was started. Well, fuck 'em.

There are two kinds of people in the world: Those who think the F-35 sucks, and those who don't

That might be simplifying things a bit, but it's close. There probably is a third kind of person in the world: those who say, what the fuck are you talking about?

Anyway, this will be kind of a military porn post, so many of you might not care. But given the decisions made by the national security establishment years ago that staked the fate of American air power to the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which the Air Force likes to call the Lightning II (because the original Lightning was an excellent World War II fighter plane, the Air Force apparently hopes good vibes will rub off.), the question of whether the F-35 sucks is actually huge for national security. It is going to be pretty much our only fighter aircraft fielded in any kind of numbers once it replaces the F-16 and the F-15. And given that we have roughly half the number of fighter squadrons that we had 20 years ago, whatever fighter we put out there better be pretty fucking good.

A number of people contend that the F-35 is not that plane -- the F-22 was supposed to fill that role. When the F-15 retires for good, the F-22 will be the only real air superiority fighter the Air Force has. The problem with that? There are only 187 operational production F-22s in the Air Force inventory:

The Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor is a single-seat, twin-engine, all weather stealth tactical fighter aircraft developed for the United States Air Force (USAF). The result of the USAF's Advanced Tactical Fighter program, the aircraft was designed primarily as an air superiority fighter, but has additional capabilities including ground attack, electronic warfare, and signals intelligence roles.[6] Lockheed Martin is the prime contractor and was responsible for the majority of the airframe, weapon systems, and final assembly of the F-22, while program partner Boeing provided the wings, aft fuselage, avionics integration, and training systems.
The aircraft was variously designated F-22 and F/A-22 prior to formally entering service in December 2005 as the F-22A. Despite a protracted development as well as operational issues, the USAF considers the F-22 a critical component of its tactical air power, and states that the aircraft is unmatched by any known or projected fighter.[7] The Raptor's combination of stealth, aerodynamic performance, and situational awareness gives the aircraft unprecedented air combat capabilities.[8][9]
The high cost of the aircraft, a lack of clear air-to-air missions due to delays in Russian and Chinese fighter programs, a ban on exports, and development of the more versatile and lower cost F-35 led to the end of F-22 production.[N 1] A final procurement tally of 187 operational production aircraft was established in 2009 and the last F-22 was delivered to the USAF in 2012.

There are usually about 20 aircraft in a fighter squadron. Given that, we can't have more than about nine fully equipped F-22 squadrons -- maybe ten if we scimp on the number of aircraft per squadron. Given the need for spares and trainers, however, nine seems like the upper limit. At three squadrons per wing (the next largest organizational unit), and roughly three wings per group, we might be able to field two fighter groups of F-22s. I have not checked Air Force figures on what they claim to be fielding, but unless they plan to go significantly understrength on squadrons, wings and groups, that is what it is. And it ain't much. Apparently, we plan to wait until it is too late -- i.e., the Chinese J-20 and the Russian T-51 are operational and in the air -- before we decide how to counter that threat. Brilliant. In the meantime, almost all of the military's fighter-plane dollars are going to the F-35. So, does it suck?

Well, I guess it depends on who you ask. Back in April, Aviation Week reported that the F-35 engaged in a dogfight test against an F-16. The magazine reported no results, saying only:

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter has been flown in air-to-air combat maneuvers against F-16s for the first time and, based on the results of these and earlier flight-envelope evaluations, test pilots say the aircraft can be cleared for greater agility as a growth option.

You're right -- that doesn't tell you much. Nor does reading the rest of the article. Although it does tell you that "greater agility growth" is needed.  Last week, the flight report of the test pilot who flew the F-35 in that test got leaked. It wasn't good:

A test pilot has some very, very bad news about the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The pricey new stealth jet can’t turn or climb fast enough to hit an enemy plane during a dogfight or to dodge the enemy’s own gunfire, the pilot reported following a day of mock air battles back in January.
“The F-35 was at a distinct energy disadvantage,” the unnamed pilot wrote in a scathing five-page brief that War Is Boring has obtained. The brief is unclassified but is labeled “for official use only.”
The test pilot’s report is the latest evidence of fundamental problems with the design of the F-35 — which, at a total program cost of more than a trillion dollars, is history’s most expensive weapon.
The U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps — not to mention the air forces and navies of more than a dozen U.S. allies — are counting on the Lockheed Martin-made JSF to replace many if not most of their current fighter jets.
And that means that, within a few decades, American and allied aviators will fly into battle in an inferior fighter — one that could get them killed … and cost the United States control of the air.

But was it really that bad? The fact that an F-35 couldn't out-dogfight an F-16 is not a tragedy. The F-22 is the only plane that can reliably defeat an F-16 in close-air combat -- in other words, relying on guns and maneuver -- and of the former Soviet inventory, only the Su-27 and the MiG-29 even come close. Both are just as old as the F-16, dating to the late 1970s and early 1980s. Neither has the avionics upgrades and other improvements that the F-16 has enjoyed since its introduction. The F-16 remains the finest dog-fighting aircraft in anyone's inventory except ours -- and we don't have a buttload of F-22s, so having the F-16 is a good thing. Here are and F-35 (the lead plane) and an F-16 in flight:

As the F-15 has proven, though, astoundingly nimble is not the only feature that makes a good fighter aircraft. Speed kills, and the F-15 also remains a fine fighter craft in part because of its speed. It has many other capabilities and is a great airplane. Modern missile inventory, which allows fighter aircraft to score kills many miles before guns are in range, lessens the the value of in-close, guns-only dogfighting capability.  The fact that the F-15 cannot hang in a dogfight with the F-16 does not make it a bad airplane. If the F-15 fails to kill an opponent at distance with missiles, it has the speed to run away and fight another day,

The same is true of the F-35. A former F-16 pilot argues convincingly that it is far too early in the testing and development process to declare the F-35 a turd:

First, let’s talk about what really happened. According to the article, an F-35A and a two-bag Block 40 F-16D took off on Jan 14, 2015 to engage in Basic Fighter Maneuver setups to test “the overall effectiveness of the aircraft in performing various specified maneuvers in a dynamic environment…this consisted of traditional Basic Fighter Maneuvers in offensive,defensive, and neutral setups at altitudes ranging from 10,000 to 30,000 feet.”
English please?

Just like a normal 1v1 proficiency sortie, the two fighters did canned setups to practice basicdogfighting. In the offensive setups, the F-35 would start off behind the F-16. At the specified range, the F-35 pilot would call “Fight’s On” and maneuver to the F-16’s control zone to employ weapons. In the defensive setups, the F-35 would start off in front while the Viper maneuvered to the F-35’s control zone. And finally, in the neutral (high-aspect) setup, the two aircraft would start completely neutral and fight until whatever DLOs (Designated Learning Objectives) they had were met, be they valid gunshots, valid missile shots, or whatever.

So while this particular article may lead you to believe the two aircraft went out there mano y mano and duked it out, the reality is that we don’t know where each deficiency was found. My guess is the critiques on the pitch rates for gunning and abilities to jink happened in the canned offensive and defensive setups. But one has to remember this is a test platform and they were out to get test data, not find out who the king of the mountain is.

Much of the criticism of the F-35 -- and the F-15, for that matter, which might be the finest fighter plane ever designed -- comes from Pierre Sprey, one of the designers of the F-16 and a driving force behind the philosophy in favor of light, agile fighter aircraft at the heart of the Air Force air superiority mission. Sprey's roots are in the Vietnam era. To reverse a trend where U.S. fighter aircraft had a shocking kill ratio of only 2:1, specialized pilot training programs were initiated by the Air Force and Navy to improve pilot dogfighting skills. The increased emphasis on dogfighting led to a return to internal guns on fighter craft -- previously, the emphasis had been on air-to-air missiles, and most fighter designs in the U.S. inventory did not have built-in guns. Sprey came out of this environment with an attitude that all U.S. fighters should be uber-nimble, lightweight dogfighting machines.

The F-16, which Sprey helped design, is the embodiment of that vision. Sprey hates the F-15 because it large and not particularly nimble (at least compared to the F-16), even though it has never been defeated in air-to-air combat. He hates the F-15 and the F-35 because they are multi-role fighters that can be configured for ground attack, as well, even though the F-16 has evolved into a multi-role fighter quite successfully. Sprey is unable to get beyond his biases, and Tyler Rogoway, a defense writer at Foxtrot Alpha, takes Sprey's diatribe apart piece by piece, revealing along the way that Sprey is criticizing the F-35 from a 1970s mindset.

The important thing to remember about the F-35 is that it is the Joint Strike Fighter. The emphasis is on "strike" here, although the F-35 is more than capable as a fighter. Further, as Rogoway points out, modern missile technology virtually guarantees the F-35 will rarely have to engage in the kind of aerial knife fight that Sprey apparently still lives out every night when his head hits the pillow. Further, as test restrictions are removed, the F-35 is quite likely to prove extremely adept even at that role.

The Pentagon, naturally, is standing by the F-35. Arguably, at this point in the development of the plane, they don't have much choice. Reacting to the leaked release of the test pilot's report that started the whole kerfuffle, the Pentagon makes some convincing points that echo some of the things Rogoway said:

The Pentagon's F-35 Joint Program Office, however, while praising and welcoming the test pilot assessments, says the "War is Boring" story leaves out key factors and critical context to the issue.
"The media report on the F-35 and F-16 flight does not tell the entire story. The F-35 involved was AF-2, which is an F-35 designed for flight sciences testing, or flying qualities, of the aircraft. It is not equipped with a number of items that make today's production F-35s 5th Generation fighters," a JPO office written statement said.
In particular, the JPO statement explained that the AF-2 test aircraft did not have the mission systems software designed to utilize the aircraft's next-generation sensors.
In short, the F-35 is engineered with a suite of next-generation sensors designed to help the aircraft recognize, detect and destroy enemy targets at longer distances -- long before it can be identified by an enemy aircraft.
"While the dogfighting scenario was successful in showing the ability of the F-35 to maneuver to the edge of its limits without exceeding them, and handle in a positive and predictable manner, the interpretation of the scenario results could be misleading. The F-35's technology is designed to engage, shoot, and kill its enemy from long distances, not necessarily in visual 'dogfighting' situations," the JPO said.

I'm not a fan of one-size-fits-all aircraft -- or anything, for that matter. Most of the problems in developing versions of the F-35 for all three flying services have arisen from the fact that the airframe design had to be able to accomodate VSTOL capabilities -- vertical and short take off and land -- to meet the Marine Corps' operational needs. The Marines are the service most desperately in need of a new aircraft, as their VSTOL fighter, the AV-8B Harrier, is 1960s technology and is getting pretty damn old. The Marines have nearly 80 F-35s in service already and plan to move some of them to operational status, possibly this summer. The Navy and Air Force versions still have more further testing to go than do the Marines, but as Forbes notes, there are a growing number of signs the F-35 is proving to be a success.

Forbes might be a little rosy, but I think it is clear that it is easy to criticize the F-35 at this point, in no small measure because of the program's cost. I think it might be wise to give a little more deference to a plane that has survived three administrations, has the backing of many of our allies, financially and through commitments to buy, and continues to pass its testing benchmarks. Problems that have arisen have been solved or solutions are in the works, and the program history indicates further problems will be solved. We can't really assess the performance of the plane until if flies with all testing restrictions off. Given the growing aggressiveness of China and Russia, it better be good.

Is common sense finally coming to defense procurement?

It would appear that the Navy, at least, is realizing that not everything that glitters is gold. Having cut off production of the F-22, a magnificent air-superiority fighter that should still be in production, the military stubbornly continues production and deployment of the F-35. The F-35 is intended to serve all three airborne services -- the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps -- even though the services have very different needs. The F-35 is a stealth fighter,  like the F-22, and thus is the flavor of the month. It is ill-suited to ground attack operations because of payload restrictions, not as good at air superiority as the F-22, and a fuck-all disaster as a carrier fighter -- the Navy simply does not want, nor should they, a carrier fighter with one engine. If you operate over water most of the time, sorry, but you want a second engine. As for the Marines, they want a mud-mover -- an airplane that can dump-truck a lot of explosives on bad guys right next to Marine positions, then land on a short, crappy runway or, preferably, vertical landing with no runway, like the Harrier. The F-35 has a variant that can land that way, but apparently the vertical take-off exhaust burns holes in the decks of the Marines' amphibious landing ships that bring the F-35 to the combat theater. Bad news.

Now, the Navy is making noises that indicate it might be coming to its senses:

The U.S. Navy’s next generation air superiority fighter will not be “super-duper fast” or employ much in the way of stealth, a senior navy official announced on Wednesday.
Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert, the Navy’s top officer, divulged some details about the Navy’s so-called Next Generation Air Dominance F/A-XX fighter jet during a speech at an industry conference.
“I don’t see that it’s going to be super-duper fast, because you can’t outrun missiles.” Greenert said, the Washington Examiner reported. “And you can’t become so stealthy that you become invisible — you are going to generate a signature of some sort,” he also noted, adding “You know that stealth may be overrated…. If something moves fast through the air and disrupts molecules in the air and puts out heat – I don’t care how cool the engine can be – it’s going to be detectable.”

I think it probably is too late to ditch the F-35, simply because of the money spent on it. We are on the verge of having squadrons deployed. It probably will work for the Air Force, but it won't work for the Navy or Marines. Further, it is more expensive than the F-22, which is a better plane for the Air Force. But at least the Navy is recognizing that the newest, brightest and shiniest might not be the best. Frankly, the best ground-attack aircraft around remains the A-10, a plane the Air Force calls the Thunderbolt but everyone else calls the Warthog. It is slow and ugly,  but it takes a licking and keeps flying, plus it can deliver a tremendous amount of ordinance on people who need killing. And the Air Force wants to kill it because the Air Force does not want to fly mud movers. Close air support is beneath them.

Well, if the Air Force doesn't want to do that shit, then the Navy and Marines need to get a grip on reality. This sounds like a good first step. Would it look something like this?