Skip to main content

U.S. Air Force says first F-35 jets are combat-ready, 15 years after effort began

f 35 fighter jet combat ready us air force co3k4plxgaaoep3 jpg large
In a major milestone for the Pentagon’s largest-ever weapons project, the U.S. Air Force has announced that its inaugural squadron of F-35 fighter jets is ready for combat.

The program was first launched way back in 2001 and awarded to Lockheed Martin, but has been delayed multiple times since due to technical challenges and other issues. These included problems with radar software and a dangerously increased likelihood of neck injury to lighter-weight pilots ejected from the aircraft. The cutting-edge jets were also allegedly outmaneuvered by the older F-16 fighter jets in mock dogfights.

Related Videos

The problems helped drive the the total cost of the F-35 project to $379 billion — almost 70 percent more than the original estimate.

Nonetheless, according to the program’s chief, Lt. Gen. Chris Bogdan, it’s finally living up to its hype. “The U.S. Air Force decision to make the 15 F-35As … combat-ready sends a simple and powerful message to America’s friends and foes alike – the F-35 can do its mission,” he is quoted as saying.

The U.S. Air Force has announced plans to purchase an impressive total of 1,763 F-35A conventional takeoff-and-landing jets in coming years, which will give it the largest F-35 fleet anywhere in the world. Lockheed will also build F-35 Lightning II jets for Britain, Australia, Norway, Italy, Turkey, Denmark, the Netherlands, Israel, South Korea, and Japan.

Not everyone is in a celebratory mood, however. “The program is not doing everything they wanted it to do,” Todd Harrison, a defense analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said.

Dan Grazier of the Project on Government Oversight said calling the jets combat ready is “nothing but a public relations stunt,” and that it won’t be possible to know this for certain until operational testing can be carried out.

The Pentagon’s F-35 program office reportedly remains in talks with Lockheed about delayed contracts for its next batches of F-35 jets, while efforts are also underway to try and drive down the cost of the new planes to $85 million per jet by 2019.

Editors' Recommendations

The U.S. Air Force’s secretive space plane just set a new record
the air forces secretive space plane just set a new record x 37b orbital

The U.S. Air Force’s secretive X-37B space plane this week broke its own record for time spent in low-Earth orbit — 718 days.

Its previous record-breaking mission of 717 days ended in May 2017 when the vehicle touched down at the Kennedy Space Center’s Shuttle Landing Facility, Space.com reported.

Read more
U.S. Army takes its pocket-sized reconnaissance drone to Afghanistan
us army takes its pocket sized reconnaissance drone to afghanistan black hornet

Introducing the FLIR Black Hornet 3

Advancing armies already deploy a range of techniques for reconnaissance missions, with more recent technology such as remotely controlled copters enabling close-up exploration of a battle zone. Such systems play a vital role in enhancing the safety of soldiers heading into potential danger, as well as those tasked with gathering the important data.

Read more
U.S. Navy is working on making its fleet invisible to computerized surveillance
us navy adversarial objects gettyimages 810869014

The U.S. Navy’s Office of Naval Research is working on a way to turn the United States military fleet invisible. Well, to a computer, at least.

The project involves so-called adversarial objects, which exploit a weakness in computer-recognition systems, either prompting them to fail to recognize an object entirely or else to classify it incorrectly. A famous example of this was a terrifying demonstration in which such systems were fooled into thinking a rifle was actually a 3D-printed toy turtle. In another instance, researchers were able to create special glasses that would cause facial-recognition software to misidentify wearers.

Read more