For this year’s Thanksgiving Day feature, The Cipher Brief revisits its coverage of the innovation and procurement challenges behind the F-35 Lighting II. As production ramps up and the U.S. and its coalition partners take delivery, we reexamine what lessons can be learned from the procurement process and whether or not the qualitative advantage of the F-35 is something to be thankful for.
The F-35 Joint Strike fighter is moving inexorably into service, but the chronically delayed program has been a procurement nightmare, with significant cost over runs and questionable performance ability. While the U.S. Marine Corps and Air Force have declared that the fifth generation aircraft has reached initial operation capability and several coalition partners have taken delivery of their first jets, significant doubts remain over the aircraft’s capabilities. A recent memo from the Pentagon’s chief weapons inspector stated, “Achieving full combat capability with the Joint Strike Fighter is at substantial risk.”
A fifth generation fighter aircraft is expected to have certain capabilities, such as stealth, advanced avionics, and sensor fusion, but the real difference above previous aircraft generations, such as the F-16 or F-18, is how the synergy of these new capabilities expand the mission set and strategic value of the aircraft. For example, instead of having a display for each type of sensor, the F-35 can seamlessly integrate the information from onboard and offboard sensors into one display, allowing the pilot to make quicker and better informed decisions. Combining all these technologies into one aircraft affords a much higher degree of plasticity, increasing the roles the F-35 can take on, be it dogfighting, close air support, reconnaissance or a combination. Assuming all the pieces work individually as designed, the sum total presents a diverse set of capabilities that warfighters are only just starting to utilize.
This plasticity makes the aircraft especially well-suited for coalition warfare because each coalition partner will have more capabilities available to it. By offering a suite of technologies that were previously unavailable in one airframe, it elevates the capabilities of U.S. partners. For a country like the UK, which does not have dedicated reconnaissance aircraft such as the E-2 Hawkeye, the advanced sensor technology in the F-35 allows it to bridge some of that capability gap and independently take on a greater variety of missions.
By using common technologies, the F-35 facilitates greater integration and information sharing among networked F-35s and other assets. Military planners expect this synergy to pay off in the potential hot spots should there ever be conflict with Russia in Eastern Europe or China in the South China Sea. Of the nine original partners in the F-35 program, eight are NATO members. In the Asia Pacific, Japan, South Korea, and Australia, are all scheduled to take delivery of the airplane. Deploying airplanes from different nations together represents innovative as yet unseen possibilities, but will require several more years of testing and training.
While the principles and goals behind the F-35 program are lofty and revolutionary, the development process has been a long and convoluted one. It remains to be seen if the program will deliver on all the original capabilities that taxpayers are funding. Using a common airframe among services with vastly different requirements, be it carrier take-off and landing for the Navy or vertical take-off and landing for the Marine Corps, has proven to be an expensive and time consuming engineering challenge. Moreover, the data fusion and networking technologies that really make the aircraft qualitatively different from earlier aircraft have been equally taxing challenges that are still being solved. Since it has entered limited service, the F-35 has only proven its worth along mostly fourth generation criteria. Whether it can show its real fifth generation value as intended remains to be seen.
As production ramps up in 44 states and in locations in Italy and Japan, the debate over the aircrafts potential and its cost and shortcomings remain unresolved. Those closest to the aircraft and those who have flown it have remained mostly positive. Lt. Col. David Berke, a Marine Corps pilot and early tester of the F-35, told The Cipher Brief “The people that know the most about the jet are the people who are the biggest advocates for it. And keep in mind these are people with experience in other airplanes and other warfighting assets.”
As more F-35s enter service, its advantages over fourth generation aircraft will become more widely known. However, the exorbitant costs associated with the program and the byzantine procurement process are an experience that many believe should not be repeated. Mandy Smithberger and Dan Grazier of the Project on Government Oversight told The Cipher Brief that the F-35 program has become “the ultimate case study of the Pentagon’s failed acquisition system.” Even if the F-35 can deliver on all of its promises, its costly and lengthy procurement process suggests there is room for improvement.
With so few planes currently in service and no experience in combat scenarios, it is still impossible to reach a verdict on the F-35’s value. For better or worse, we have yet to learn what the most ambitious weapons program in history is capable of.
Will Edwards is an international producer at The Cipher Brief.
