I am not associated with any Air Force or Aerospace Corporation, my interests primarily lie in Australian military procurement and strategy. This is what i have gathered from the sources i have read and my own analysis.

The F-35 is a good aircraft whilst the Joint Strike Fighter program is mediocre, unrealistic goals/timeframes and difficulties with program management for 3 aircraft have caused headaches , there are several prominent criticisms, some of which do have a basis but i do not view as entirely accurate, i will outline their context below.

Criticism 1) Joint program costs too much. The original idea is you develop 3 aircraft for the price of 1.8 if we compare the JSF to the ATF it’s 3:2.2 or to less advanced western aircraft it’s 3:2.75 so it’s cheaper but not nearly as much as envisioned. The other issue with this is that you “put all your eggs in one basket” while not entirely true it’s still a significant risk that isn’t overly necessary, the original plan(before congress merged it) for a joint USAF/USMC and a separate program for USN aircraft would have been a safer path, the C variant also has the lowest commonality and lowest production quantity which results in large costs, both in acquisition and LCC. Commonality benefits in sustainment(2/3rds the overall cost) have yet to be accurately understood as is the benefits of the ALIS program to automate logistics support. A strange argument that occurs is that the JSF program has failed to achieve a meaningful level of commonality that it anticipated, during the Weight Watchers incident Cousin parts were invented using the same tools/processes for different sizes/materials. JPO states this has an average 82% of the benefit of a common component, after factoring in variant fleet numbers the commonality benefit overall is 68.2%, short of their target(70-80%) but still very high. Lockheed has also stated “Commonality has never been an objective of the program. It is a strategy”.

Criticism 2) Commonality negatively affects performance. As demonstrated in my other post certain performance parameters are reduced because of cost, not so much because of commonality trade-offs. By having a pooled R&D systems can be developed to a much greater extent and aircraft produced more cheaply allowing more money to be spent on system enhancing measures, this balances against costly specific requirements of each service(long loiter time vs high top speed etc), the outcome being that superior or inferior to individual program’s is difficult to distinguish. “The technical challenges involved in designing a single aircraft for all three services were met by designing three highly common, but not identical, variants of the same aircraft. The STOVL variant, which was designed first, incorporates a shaft-driven lift fan in a bay between the inlet ducts and a thrust-vectoring cruise nozzle. The airframe was designed to Air Force specifications, so that the conventional takeoff and landing variant was developed by removing the lift fan and vectoring nozzles from the STOVL variant and substituting a fuel tank and a conventional cruise nozzle. The Naval variant was similarly developed from the conventional variant by increasing the wing area, designing stronger landing gear, and using stronger cousin parts to handle the larger airframe loads associated with carrier takeoffs and landings. Both the STOVL and Naval variants are about 15% heavier than the conventional variant.” – Paul M. Bevilaqua

Criticism 3) Concurrency. Because of the vast improvement in computer simulations and an unrealistic development time-frame(half the time that what it took for the Raptor) Concurrency was believed to shorten the program time and enter Full Rate Production much quicker with little cost. This turned out to be false as many issues popped up that the computers hadn’t caught and such a large error margin hadn’t been factored into the already unrealistic timetable. Concurrency isn’t a bad thing, all programs have some degree of it. The F-16 had a particular high concurrency rate, it wasn’t until 1984, 6 years after introduction, that the Block 25 C/D version came out it was the versatile and adept aircraft we know today. There is a “sweet spot” for the right amount of concurrency.

Criticism 4) Procurement process, delays, costly. By using Cost-Plus there is no incentive for contractors to reduce risk or costs and encourages unrealistic program goals, since 2010 the contract award system for the JSF has been moving to a Fixed Price plus incentives(rewards for cutting costs, holding money back until specifications are met) system and is much more effective. The Delays were due to an overly optimistic time-frame and mismanagement, compared to other modern aircraft the development time is average, the procurement system the F-35 had to go through is often criticized. Cost increases are due *primarily* to several things, one is the overly unrealistic goals that took a lot more time and resources to realise, the second is the SWAT teams efforts to reduce weight on the STOVL variant and according all variants to maintain commonality, the biggest change being eliminating a manufacturing process that added 1,000 pounds but was a lot cheaper, other’s include reduced concurrency resulting in higher production costs, changes in cost prediction, labor costs, added auxiliary items, etc.

Criticism 5) Stealth is defeated by Low Band Radar(UHF-VHF). It’s true that Low Band can “see” through stealth, at least to a much greater degree then higher bands, it see’s “through” the shaping but RAM can absorb VHF waves. The downside’s that Low Band is a highly inaccurate radio frequency, it can only locate a target within a kilometer’s accuracy, older systems can’t even determine altitude, this is not nearly enough for missile acquisition or accurate identification of the threat and is very susceptible to clutter and decoys, this means an aircraft still has be acquired by higher band radar(usually “cued” where to look by the UHF-VHF radar, allowing it to focus on a specific area). Other downsides is that Low Band require’s very large antennae to steer the radar beams and they require significant power, the result being that Low Band radar is limited to ground and naval systems. So while Low Band Radar does offer some counter to Stealth, namely early warning systems still being effective and vital, they have tremendous weaknesses that can easily be exploited and can not extend to Aerial systems with any potency. Furthermore the advancement of all Radar systems has made Stealth ‘sine qua non’ for Survivability.

Criticism 6) Not a dogfighter. All though we have established that the F-35 has good agility that is comparable to the aircraft it is replacing, to contain cost this is all it aspired to do, it is not as agile as advanced aircraft such as the Raptor, Eurofighter or Sukhoi’s and this has raised considerable flack over it’s ability to perform the Air Dominance mission. Over the past 30 years there has been a considerably revolution in how Within Visual Range(WVR) combat is fought due to two factors. The first is the advent of highly agile, countermeasure resistant ‘dogfight’ missiles. The second is the perfecting of helmet-mounted sighting systems that allow pilots to acquire and launch ‘dogfight’ missiles at targets far from the aircraft’s line of sight, an even newer advance called Lock On After Launch(LOAL) allows the full envelope of engagement. Previously the aircraft had to maneuver to the correct position, now the missile does the maneuvering.

A common misconception is that over-reliance on missiles has lead to bad results in Vietnam when the real issue was not training pilots in Dissimilar Aircraft Combat Training, the Ault report with the idea “train the man” lead to the creation of Top Gun which saw Navy F-4Cs go from 2:1 to 13:1(or 6:1 depending on source) with the AIM-9G having a 46 percent hit rate, whilst USAF F-4Es remained at 2:1, and a lack of Situational Awareness as found in the Red Baron report. So the F-35 is good at WVR with it’s 360 targeting of DAS paired with HOBs but do we want to fight in the WVR domain? Modern ‘dogfight’ missiles can “launch and leave” whilst not being confused by flares, aircraft launching these highly agile missiles deep in the “no-escape zone” end up taking out each others aircraft. This results in exchange ratios of close to parity and results in a battle of attrition, much better would be the leveraging of sensors, networking, strategy and tactics to ensure combat takes place outside of the no escape zone if much superior exchange ratios are to be achieved. It is for these reasons that the F-35 emphasises BVR combat over WVR. Current modeling based on operational experience and simulation shows 72% of fights in BVR(18nm+), 31% in transitional range and 7% in WVR(8nm-).

Criticism 7) Single engines are less safe. This argument rests upon data from well over 50 years, in the past 20 years the F100-PW-229 equipped in both the F-16 and the F-15 has had far more accidents in the F-15, presumably due to the complexity of two engines, it’s also more safe then the two F119s used in the F-22 which have also had more Class A engine mishaps then the F-16 with the same flight hours, given the similarities between the F-16 & F-35 & their engines it’s safe to assume that the F-35 will have a similar accident rate as a modern F-16 which is so far none.

Criticism 8) War Games, there has been claims of certain War Games being conducted in which the F-35 performed very poorly, these were false, a real war game conducted by RAAF has results of “greater than six to one relative loss exchange ratio against in four versus eight engagement scenarios—four blue at 35s versus eight advanced red threats in the 2015 to 2020 time frame.””And it is very important to note that our constructive simulations that Mr Burbage talks about without the pilot in the loop are the lowest number that we talk about—the greater than six to one. When we include the pilot in the loop activities, they even do better when we include all of that in our partner manned tactical simulation facility”. The JSF is claimed by Lockheed to have greater than 6 to 1 kill ratio in 4v4 against near future threat aircraft, the JSFs success is attributed to Stealth and Situational Awareness. We can also look at Red Flag results with F-22s that use the same principle of “First look, First shot, First Kill” which achieve upwards of 144-0 kill ratios. We can also see how these fights would shape out with this Civilian War Gaming.

Criticism 9) STOVL is useless. First we need to know what the Marines are, the USMC have 7 MEUs(~2,500 soldiers) & 3 MAGTFs(~22,000 soldiers)(with detachable MEBs), each force is a self-contained army with tanks, artillery, rotary wing, fixed wing and logistics assets. These units are either ready for rapid deployment(MAGTF in California, Carolina) or are forward based, MAGTF in Japan, 7 MEUs in an Amphibious Read Group(ARG) composed of one LHD, one LPD, one LSD plus a Cruiser, one/two Destroyers and a Sub. Usually two to three ARGs are deployed at a time, one in the Med/Persian/Indian and one or two in the Pacific. These units act as the “fire-fighters” for the US, the rapid reaction force that responds immediately to any crisis, they provide humanitarian aid, they evacuate embassy’s, they provide a rapid strike force. As a strike force this is not limited to amphibious assaults a la Inchon but where the ARG acts as a seabase from which one can conduct a variety of operations across the spectrum of warfare.

This last one is the reason for their existence, the biggest threat to the Marines is an Integrated Air Defense System(IADS), they extensively use helicopters to land troops rapidly(the first two America class LHDs won’t even have well docks) and they use air power(both rotary and fixed) to provide fire support, due to the Marines light footed posture they must make the most out of Combined Arms to compensate for their less powerful gear. Modern IADS are quite capable of denying the Marines the capability of deploying at all(at least until the USAF destroys them) or supporting their infantry, a Modern IADS would easily kill any Helicopter or a Harrier and any other legacy aircraft(F-16s, F/A-18s etc) and they need a 5th Gen aircraft to be able to survive & destroy these threats now and in the future. The Marines would either use the F-35 from their carriers or forward deploy them from Mobile Forward Arming and Refueling Points(MFARPs) and keep their Carriers a safe distance away. Forward deployment of STOVL aircraft has happened several times before, although the new CONOPS for the Marines with the F-35B is much more ambitious.

Criticisms 10) Nitpicking. As to the mountain of criticisms for minor details such as latency or weather clearance etc i will refer to the Selected Acquisition Report(SAR) Executive Summary and Jim Gigliotti.

“In summary, the F-35 program is showing steady progress in all areas – including development, flight test, production, maintenance, and stand-up of the global sustainment enterprise. The program is currently on the right track and will continue to deliver on the commitments that have been made to the F-35 Enterprise. As with any big, complex development program, there will be challenges and obstacles. However, we have the ability to overcome any current and future issues, and the superb capabilities of the F-35 are well within reach for all of us.” – SAR

“The Lift system are one of those were you thought, man that’s something we haven’t really done before, we haven’t matured that yet, there’s going to be big problems. The EHAs, the electro hydrostatic actuators, we were worried about that, basic structural integrity, we were worried about that, are we going to meet it? We haven’t seen any of those major issues really raise their ugly heads, the issues we’ve had to overcome in flight tests are the small things that you normally have to over come in any flight test program and please keep in mind we are in the middle of the flight test program. Our job in flight test is to stress the aircraft, look for things that are problems and fix them, actively fix them… This program is the most heavily scrutinized program around, we can’t afford to hide anything, we can’t hide anything, and we’re not doing that, everything we do are out in the open. We’re fixing all of those nits, some of those nits get blown completely out of proportion, that’s ok, let it happen. We have the hard job of going back and finding a technical solution and then implementing it, and that’s what we do in flight test, so that’s what we’re doing right now.” – Jim Gigliotti

Now what makes it good?

Reasoning: The F-35 is designed to operate in contested airspace for the years 2020-2060, the core abilities in this period will be;

Electronic Warfare(EW), this is a key capability in both the offensive and primarily defensive role. In the offense it can force the opponent to make a move(false target generation), revealing his location or avoid enemy EW(LPI mode, frequency hopping etc). In the defense it can create confusion and degrade sensor abilities(jamming; spot, sweep, barrage, pulse, cover, DRFM & deceptive).

C2ISR. Information is lethality, by having a greater knowledge of where your opponent is and with greater control over your forces you can both evade and place yourself in a position to more easily destroy the enemy. The F-35’s combination of advanced AESA Radar, Radar Warning Receiver, DAS system, EOTS and it’s Communications suite provides unparalleled C2ISR in a combat aircraft.

Stealth allows for greater survivability in an increasingly lethal battlefield by reducing detection distance, reaction times and increasing operational flexibility while also allowing the aircraft to better position itself for engagements and allowing the first shot, further giving it the edge.

Situational Awareness. WW2 and the Red Baron report from the Vietnam War having proven again and again that both having greater information of your opponent and being able to interpret and act upon that information results in a much more favorable outcome with 80% of fights determined by SA, for an example compare two forces of Boeing F-15 fighters, one using Link 16 data link and the other using only voice radio. The Link 16-equipped F-15s had a kill ratio 2.5 times higher, this is a conclusive demonstration of the importance of information in all of it’s aspects, both of enemy and friendly aircraft. The F-35’s information gathered(and buddies information with MADL) feed into it’s touch screen panoramic display or it’s Gen III Helmet Mounted Display is a vast improvement and allows pilots to absorb much more information more simply.

The F-35 also retains legacy war-fighting characteristics with similar manoeuvrability and greater payload/range then the F-16C/F-18C and greater manoeuvrability with similar payload/greater range than the F/A-18E/F.

Is it worth it? Both procurement and sustainment wise the aircraft is cheaper then most other modern aircraft and aircraft of similar value have a lot less capability, the early mismanagement is no reason to languish an aging air force that has doubt-able survivability in the future against high end threats such as SA-17’s -20’s -21’s & -22s and aircraft such as J-20’s, J-31’s, J-11B’s, Su-35’s & PAK FA’s. The only way forwards is the F-35 and even though it’s costs are appreciably more then original stated it still offers a significant upgrade in capability, both for OCA, DCA, Interdiction and CAS missions over past multi-role aircraft and over opponents. Already in Green Flag it’s performing CAS missions that F-16s and A-10s can’t.

The question is will the aircraft it’s replacing be adequate in the 2020-2060 timeline or will we need the F-35? In my opinion it’s the latter for all of the above reasons.

Relevant Pilot Comments:

“In any practice engagement I have had in the last 20 years where I have turned with another aeroplane in a bigger picture environment – rather than the static one by ones, two by twos or four by fours – every time I have tried to do that I have ended up being shot by somebody else who actually is not in the fight. As soon as you enter a turning fight, your situational awareness actually shrinks down because the only thing you can be operating with is the aeroplane you are turning with. The person who has the advantage is the person who can stand off, watch the engagement and just pick you off at the time. So you got to be really careful about how you use those KPIs.” – Air Marshal Brown

“the ability to actually have that data fusion that the aeroplane has makes an incredible difference to how you perform in combat. I saw it first hand on a Red Flag mission in an F15D against a series of fifth-generation F22s. We were actually in the red air. In five engagements we never knew who had hit us and we never even saw the other aeroplane…. After that particular mission I went back and had a look at the tapes on the F22, and the difference in the situational awareness in our two cockpits was just so fundamentally different. That is the key to fifth-generation….the ability to be in a cockpit with a God’s-eye view of what is going on in the world was such an advantage over a fourth-generation fighter – and arguably one of the best fourth-generation fighters in existence, the F15. But even with a DRFM jamming pipe, we still had no chance in those particular engagements. And at no time did any of the performance characteristics that you are talking about have any relevance to those five engagements.” – Air Marshal Brown talking about an exchanged RAAF pilots experience.

“The difference is in what people understand is important in air combat. It is the situation awareness that you have is important—that is all important. Manoeuvrability is important when you are defensive and that is the only time when it comes to be important. Manoeuvrability since helmet-mounted sights has become far less important in offensive situations, because with a helmet-mounted sight and an off-boresight missile you do not have to manoeuvre to somebody at 6 o’clock. You can actually shoot them when they are in your 6 o’clock almost—that is the difference. I would say it is a difference in what is important in air combat capability.” – Air Marshal Brown

“If you go to the merge, and if you each have a helmet mounted sight and you have a highly-agile missile then chances are you are both within range of not escaping if they fire the missiles. So there is a very high likelihood that both of you will die” – Pete “Toes” Bartos

“And without getting into all the tricks that the F-35 has up its sleeve, because you’re stealthy, you can get a lot closer to the adversary and your missile shots are now lethal, no-escape shots. With the F-15 today, you’re very wary of the range of the other guy’s missile, and you basically have to assume that he’s locked on to you, or at least knows where you are since you are in a big, non-stealthy airframe.” – Pete “Toes” Bartos

“Like the F-22, the F-35 can maneuver right in there and attack with a close-in kill shot without playing chicken. If the F-35 gets in a bad situation, the pilot can extract himself a heck of a lot easier than in an F-15. The F-35 can turn away and still attack because it has eyes in the back of its head coupled with high off boresight missiles.” – Pete “Toes” Bartos

“While flying an F-15 in a dogfight, I have to constantly swivel my head to manually detect and track adversaries and wingmen with my eyes. Situational awareness breaks down quickly, and I’m suddenly wondering if that distant object I’m looking at is an F-15 or an adversary aircraft. I’ve flown against MiG-29s, and it wasn’t until I was up close and saw the paint job that I could be positive it wasn’t an F-15. With your head and eyes shifting back and forth under high G loading in a turning fight, it is very easy to lose sight, get confused, and misidentify aircraft.” Pete “Toes” Bartos

“In the future, it may not matter where the weapon comes from,” the commander said of a bombing run. “I may pass the data along, or I may fire a weapon and it may come from somewhere else. That is where we are heading.” – Cmdr. Burks

“A combat-configured F-16 is encumbered with weapons, external fuel tanks, and electronic countermeasures pods that sap the jet’s performance.” “You put all that on, I’ll take the F-35 as far as handling characteristic and performance, that’s not to mention the tactical capabilities and advancements in stealth,” he says. “It’s of course way beyond what the F-16 has currently.” – Lt Col Lee Kloos

“But in the first moments of a conflict I’m not sending Growlers or F-16s or F-15Es anywhere close to that environment, so now I’m going to have to put my fifth gen in there and that’s where that radar cross-section and the exchange of the kill chain is so critical. You’re not going to get a Growler close up to help in the first hours and days of the conflict, so I’m going to be relying on that stealth to open the door,” – General Hostage

“Fusion is the fundamental delineator. And you’re not going to put fusion into a fourth gen airplane because their avionic suites are not set up to be a fused platform. And fusion changes how you use the platform. What I figured out is I would tell my Raptors, I don’t want a single airplane firing a single piece of ordinance until every other fourth-gen airplane is Winchester. Because the SA (situational awareness) right now that the fifth gen has is such a leveraging capability that I want my tactics set up to where my fourth gen expend their ordinance using the SA that the fifth gen provides, the fifth gen could then mop up, and then protect everybody coming in the next wave. It’s radically changing how we fight on the battlefield. We are fundamentally changing the tactical battlefield. How a tactical platform operates with the fusion of fifth gen. What the aviators do is fundamentally different in a fifth gen platform versus fourth gen in the tactical fight.” – General Hostage

“The advanced fusion of the F-35 versus the F-22 means those airplanes have an equal level or better level of invulnerability than the Raptors have, but it takes multiple airplanes to do it because of the synergistic fused attacks of their weapon systems.” – General Hostage

“The F-35 is geared to go out and take down the surface targets,”“The F-35 doesn’t have the altitude, doesn’t have the speed [of the F-22], but it can beat the F-22 in stealth.”“The F-35 was fundamentally designed to go do that sort of thing [take out advanced IADS].” – General Hostage

“This is the way our future air force would want to operate to achieve air superiority, in preference to fighting air battles of attrition—glamorous and gladiatorial though air battles may be. An adversary’s air capabilities are better destroyed on the ground than in the air. Thus the fundamental keys to air superiority in coming decades will be reach and precision, exercised by a determined leadership that is prepared to seize the initiative.” – Air Marshal Angus Houston

“Ideally, most OCA operations will prevent the launch of aircraft and missiles by destroying them and their supporting systems on the ground” – USAF Doctrine

“From the operator’s perspective, it will be like the difference between stumbling around a dark room and turning the 5 lights on. The combat situation will be instantaneously transparent. All of those high-processing-time tasks that the pilot used to spend his time on, with the objective of knowing what was going on so that he can then take an appropriate action are now done by the airplane.” – “Shotgun” Anthony

“People throw out those terms all the time, “the paradigm shift”, “a game changer”, “an evolutionary leap”, all those things, but it’s all true. It’s all accurate. And I can tell you from the perspective of a guy who has flown over 2,000 hours in a Hornet. I was a TOPGUN instructor. I was really at the top of my game. I was as competent as the Marine Corps could’ve taught me to be. In spite of this background, it was a challenge and a major mental leap for me to go to the F-22. It takes time to turn the corner with 5th Gen thinking. But once you do, there’s no going back. Your SA and your ability increase dramatically. Truth be told, you’re always going to have limits in any legacy platform, for many reasons. There’s not a pilot in the Air Force that’s flying Raptors right now that will not tell you the exact same thing.””When you consider the fused cockpit of a JSF, you begin to understand just why all those descriptors are really accurate. It’s an evolutionary leap. It’s a paradigm shift. It’s a game changer!” – Lieutenant-Colonel Berke

‘The F-35 was optimized, if anything, to go into a high threat environment with advanced surface-to-air missile systems and use very advanced air-to surface sensors to find targets and kill them. It will do that fantastically’ Col Christopher Niemi

“Look at it like this: the F-111 was a landline; a telephone connected to the system made out of black plastic,” he said. “The F/A-18 is a huge brick ­mobile phone, but the F-35 is like the latest iPhone.” “We’re going to have to adapt the way we think about air combat to be able to utilise the F-35 to its full ­potential,” – Air Vice- Marshal Kym Osley

“When you put together the stealth with the situational awareness, with it being connected to all the other airplanes, with the information sharing — this airplane is going to be pretty darn hard to beat,” – Maj. Michael Roundtree

“Having an overview of the situation will allow me to plan my attack; I can prepare myself mentally for what will happen, I can minimize my signature, maybe try to sneak up on my opponent from a dead angle. I can adjust my speed, height and geometry, I can dump heavy weapons to make the aircraft more maneuverable, and I can prepare my desired weapon and optimize the sensors as I approach the merge. I would therefore argue that the situational awareness of a well-trained pilot is the strongest factor when it comes to winning a dogfight.” – Captain Morten Hanche

Suffice to say “5th gen is here to stay and that it will mean a whole new way of doing business.”

V1.8