The US Air Force today announced that its first operational squadron of F-35A Lightning II fighters is ready for combat duty. The announcement was made just a day into the five-month period that the Air Force had been given to reach operational levels with the 34th Fighter Squadron, based at Hill Air Force Base in Utah.

The "initial capability" declaration comes after two Air Force F-35As joined two Marine Corps F-35s at July's Royal International Air Tattoo at the United Kingdom's Fairford Royal Air Force base and after an accelerated pace of operational tests for the 34th over the past few months. The first F-35A aircraft were delivered to the 34th in September of last year. They've been modified several times after delivery, including getting software updates to the avionics that have eliminated some of the "instability" problems previously experienced (including radar system crashes that required reboots while in flight). Since the most recent software upgrades, the squadron has flown 88 individual aircraft sorties without a software problem, according to an Air Combat Command statement.

The system, the Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS), combines diagnostics and repair functions with part inventory and verifies that the correct parts have been installed properly. In earlier versions of the software, a bug in ALIS prevented aircraft from flying even when properly maintained. ALIS 2.0.2, the latest version, won't be available to the Air Force until October at the earliest.

But in June, the Air Force successfully conducted a short deployment of the F-35 squadron to another air base to demonstrate that the aircraft could be successfully maintained with the current version of ALIS. According to the declaration of initial capability by Air Combat Command Chief General Herbert "Hawk" Carlisle, "the current software will not be an impediment to operations."

The Air Force has heavily promoted the performance and stealthiness of the F-35. The commander of the 34th Fighter Squadron, Air Force Lt. Col George Watkins, reported that during a training exercise in which pilots were supposed to practice evading surface air defenses, the air defense batteries participating in the exercise couldn't track the planes to lock onto them until pilots turned on their transponders for tracking by the FAA. “We basically told them where we were at and said, ‘Hey, try to shoot at us,’” Watkins said.

However, as stealthy as it is, the F-35A currently has a limited punch. The aircraft won't be able to carry the full suite of weapons used by the F-16—the aircraft it is intended to replace—until 2020, when the Air Force begins accepting aircraft at full-rate production of 150 per year.

Eventually, the Air Force plans to purchase up to 1,800 F-35As at a final price tag of $100 million per aircraft (plus the buried costs of the long-delayed development of the aircraft). The total development cost of the program to the US and its allies is expected to exceed $500 billion (~£375 billion).