THE shooting down of a Syrian fighter jet may have exposed a fatal flaw with Australia’s next generation aircraft, the F-35 Lightning II stealth fighter.

Details have begun to emerge about Sunday’s incident, which saw two US Navy F/A-18E Super Hornets engage a Syrian Su-22 fighter in the skies near the Islamic State capital of Raqqa.

It was the first time a US combat jet has shot down a manned aircraft since 1999.

But things did not go to plan.

According to the marketing and lobbying of manufacturers, modern US air-to-air missiles have a claimed ‘kill’ ratio of almost 100 per cent.

But one of the missiles fired at the Cold War veteran missed.

FALLING ARROWS

The shoot-down followed attacks on US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces by Syrian Government troops using tanks and artillery.

Syrian regime forces began to advance after its jets bombed US-backed forces which were themselves moving on Islamic State positions near Tabqa, a town south of the Islamic State stronghold of Raqqa..

This engagement prompted Coalition commanders to activate a ‘hotline’ with Russian forces in Syria, established to avoid just such incidents.

RELATED: Analysts ‘wargame’ conflict with China

But the forces loyal to Russian-backed President Assad continued to advance.

So US commanders ordered Coalition aircraft to fire warning shots near the Syrian Government forces.

This halted the Syrian regime ground vehicles. But not its aircraft.

“They saw the Su-22 approaching,” Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis told reporters.

“It again had dirty wings; it was carrying ordnance. They did everything they could to try to warn it away. They did a headbutt manoeuvre, they launched flares ….”

This reveals the US aircraft went to great pains to warn the armed Syrian aircraft away, flying just ahead of it to buffet it in the turbulence of their own wakes and firing flares to highlight the gravity of the situation.

“But ultimately the Su-22 went into a dive and it was observed dropping munitions and was subsequently shot down,” the spokesman said.

But it wasn’t quite that simple.

The US F/A-18E fired a heat-seeking AIM-9 Sidewinder missile at the Su-22. But the 40-year-old Syrian jet was able to dodge, dropping flares and jinking out of its flight path.

The US fighter then had to fall back some 2km before firing a medium range, radar-guided AIM-120 missile. This successfully struck the target, and the Syrian pilot ejected over Islamic State held territory.

LIGHTNING WITHOUT THUNDER

The F-35A Strike Fighter carries no more than four air-to-air missiles in its internal bays. Less if it has to add air-to-ground weapons to that mix.

While the Lightning II can carry a much more extensive payload — including air-to-air missiles — under its wings, it does so at a significant cost.

It loses its stealth ability.

Without that ability to hide in the skies, its relatively poorer manoeuvrability, acceleration and speed puts it at a disadvantage to most modern Russian and Chinese fighter aircraft designs.

Which is why the F-35’s concept relies upon all air-to-air combat being conducted ‘beyond visual range’, where it is not required to manoeuvre. But long-range missile attacks are generally regarded as having less chance of success than those at close range.

RELATED: Quantum radar strips F-35 of its stealth

And the F-35’s less than outstanding manoeuvrability also means it has less ability to ‘dodge’ in the final moments of an attacking missile’s approach.

A 2008 study by the RAND Corporation showed that, even assuming a 50 per cent offensive missile success rate and a 100 per cent successful defensive missile evasion rate, F-35 Strike Fighters would run out of missiles long before they ran out of targets.

F-35 proponents argued this warning was not relevant, as missile success rates were close to 100 per cent. Given Sunday’s performance, perhaps they were being optimistic.