In this article:
F-35 Lightning II Program
Abraham Abrams is an expert in military affairs and security holding a master’s degree in War Studies from King’s College London, with a thesis on PLA modernisation, as well as a Masters in East Asian International Relations. He has studied the F-35 program for over a decade, and in his latest book assessed its development in the context of both historical trends in the US air power development, and global developments in aerial warfare.
Balancing both positive and critical assessments of the F-35 program, his latest book is titled: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter: A Great and Terrible Program. Abrams previously published two books on the F-35’s closest rival in terms of performance and production scale, the Chinese J-20, including J-20 Mighty Dragon: Asia’s First Stealth Fighter in the Era of China’s Military Rise with Helion & Company, and the longer title China’s Stealth Fighter: The J-20 ‘Mighty Dragon’ and the Growing Challenge to Western Air Dominance with Pen & Sword.
Developed under the largest weapons program in history, F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is today in production on a larger scale than any other manned combat jet in the world, with its capabilities having greater implications for the global balance of power than those of any other military asset. The extent to which the US Armed Forces and American strategic partners rely on the fighter remains wholly unprecedented, with the large majority of US Air Force fighter procurements, all those by the Marine Corps, and from 2027 all those by the Navy, being F-35s.
A Great and Terrible Program
As the only fighter of its generation in production in the Western world, evaluations made across multiple tenders have consistently concluded that the F-35 operates in an entirely different league to other Western combat jets, with this superiority giving the program a particular significance in an era of high geopolitical tensions.
The Aviation Geek Club recently asked its readers to submit questions about the F-35 Lightning II. We submitted them to Abrams.
This post features the first 3 answers.
– Was the Joint Strike Fighter really the worst fighter program ever? Or the resulting F-35 is currently the best fighter in the world today?
As is implied in the title ‘F-35 Joint Strike Fighter: A Great and Terrible Program,’ the program has polarised opinion, with the fighter at once being both highly problematic and much less capable than it could have been, and extremely dominant with a standing that few other fighter types have ever achieved. Its cost overruns, and its negative impacts for the US Armed Forces in terms of forcing contractions of fighter fleets, reducing pilot flight training hours, and lowering average availability rates, are unprecedented and have been disastrous. On the other hand, the program has produced what is by a significant margin overall the most capable fighter outside China, and one which despite tremendous overruns to its operational costs is still highly cost effective, particularly when compared to the F-18, Rafale, Eurofighter and other twin engine ‘4+ generation’ fighters.
F-35 Fully Block 4 standard
The contraction of the US services’ fighter fleets, continued reliance on Cold War era aircraft, and much greater reliance on simulators for pilot training, are direct results of the F-35 program’s delays and shortcomings. At the same time, the fighter’s total dominance on export markets, winning every tender in which it has competed by a significant margin, bear testament to its successes and its potency.
Once the F-35 is brought up to a fully Block 4 standard, which has been delayed repeatedly and will now only be achieved in the early-mid 2030s, it will have a much greater impact on the global balance of power, and be able to play far more central roles in campaigns like the ongoing US-Iranian conflict. These delays, however, have allowed China in particular to bridge key capability gaps with its J-20 and J-35 programs. Evaluating the F-35, including its extreme strengths and very significant shortcomings, requires a paper in and of itself to do even in summary, but the program has produced results that are at once both truly great and truly disastrous.
Lightning II Vs Advanced ‘4+ generation’ fighters
– How do you compare the F-35 to the current fourth generation fighters?Is there any of them that can close the gap with the F-35 performance and avionics?
No fighter is best at everything, and several fourth generation fighter types have significant advantages over the F-35 in various performance areas. The F-16, for example, is far more maintenance friendly and can thus be sustained with a far smaller logistics footprint, and more easily maintain high availability rates. Heavyweight fighters such as the F-15EX and J-16 carry significantly larger radars and more weaponry than the F-35, while having far more impressive flight performances and longer ranges. The EA-18G, although limited in its versatility, is a peer competitor and is in some respects more capable the F-35 in its ability to collect electronic and signals intelligence and jam adversary radars.
Advanced ‘4+ generation’ fighters in the US and China have comparably advanced avionics to the F-35, albeit lacking its unique and very potent combination of advanced subsystems. In terms of their overall combat potentials, a number of fourth generation combat jets including the F-15EX, EA-18G, J-15B and J-16 can operate on comparable levels to the F-35, as evidenced by the continued investment in procuring these aircraft by both the US and China despite their comparable and at times higher lifetime costs than fifth generation fighters.
Hypersonic weapons
– Would a portable tactical laser or hypersonic weapon ever be considered for use on the F-35?
This certainly remains a possibility, particularly when considering how long the fighter type is expected to be relied on for frontline roles in three separate US services, and in the services of several countries with their own world leading defence sectors such as Japan and South Korea, any one of which could develop such subsystems for the fighter. Programs to develop such weapons have already been initiated, as covered in some detail in my recent book. The Mako Multi-Mission Hypersonic Missile, developed by Lockheed Martin and CoAspire, is expected to have both anti-ship and air-to-ground capabilities. The design from its outset has emphasised simplicity as a means to reduce costs, and it is confirmed to be able to fit inside the weapons bays of the F-35A and F-35C variants.
It is likely that a wider range of hypersonic weapons will be compatible if not required to be carried internally, with multiple services having shown an interest in larger externally-mounted weapons such as the AGM-158C Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM), a subsonic cruise missile. When considering Japan’s significant interest in hypersonic weapons capabilities, it is highly possible that the country will be the first to develop such a weapon.
Laser weapons
The size of the F-35 program makes it beneficial for countries to invest in developing new weapons for the fighter, particularly ones that fit in its weapons bays, since the more than 20 services that will operate the aircraft will all be possible clients.
The possibility of the integration of a compact solid-state airborne laser weapon onto the F-35 has been raised by analysts as a possible facilitator of anti-ballistic missile operations since the mid-2010s. Laser also have significant applications for air-to-air combat and air-to-surface attacks, although much like hypersonic weapons, programs pursued in the United States, such as the Self-protect High Energy Laser Demonstrator (SHiELD), have most often ended in failure. The difficulties fighters have had in countering low value unmanned aircraft, most notably in the Middle East, has from 2024 increased interest in airborne laser weapons development since such weapons do not have ammunition limits as missiles do. It is highly possible that a foreign operator such as South Korea or Israel will pioneer this capability, and market a laser weapons pod for the F-35 back to the US and other operators.
Photo credit: Lockheed Martin, Royal Australian Air Force and U.S. Air Force
