{"id":44768,"date":"2019-01-02T06:00:44","date_gmt":"2019-01-01T19:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=44768"},"modified":"2019-01-02T10:26:36","modified_gmt":"2019-01-01T23:26:36","slug":"editors-picks-for-2018-the-mangled-myths-dogging-the-joint-strike-fighter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/editors-picks-for-2018-the-mangled-myths-dogging-the-joint-strike-fighter\/","title":{"rendered":"Editors\u2019 picks for 2018: \u2018The mangled myths dogging the joint strike fighter\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Originally published 19 September 2018.<\/em><\/p>\n

With the RAAF\u2019s first two operational joint strike fighters arriving in early December, long-time critics have launched a fresh wave of claims that the aircraft is a disaster.<\/p>\n

Early in September, a writer in a major Australian newspaper declared that<\/a> US pilots had \u2018finally forced into the open one of the greatest cover ups in the modern world: the disaster that is the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) or F-35\u2019. This claim is maybe one of the most ironic of all myths about the JSF, given it\u2019s one of the most openly reported and heavily scrutinised development projects in world history.<\/p>\n

The report went on to say, \u2018America\u2019s pilots could see that the JSF was no match for equivalent Russian and Chinese aircraft. Add to that bad management in the US air force and the US pilots have been leaving the USAF force [sic] in droves. Who wants to fly a death machine into battle?\u2019<\/p>\n

The big problem with the resurrection of myths about JSF capability trouble is that they are wrong. Another problem with the regurgitation of earlier claims is that many issues aired earlier have been resolved over the course of the JSF\u2019s development. So we are hearing old news dressed up as new insights.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s worth saying something simple up front: the jets are operational with US and Israeli forces. The Israelis have used them operationally this year.<\/p>\n

And the jets have proved very effective in the US Red Flag exercise\u2014the most rigorous air combat contest held in peacetime\u2014which pits forces from the US and allies such as Australia against teams trained to perform as the \u2018enemy\u2019 and equipped as much as possible to fight using the tactics of a potential adversary. F-35s achieved kill ratios of over 20 to 1. That\u2019s an impressive empirical proof of capability and performance.<\/p>\n

The US company that builds the JSF, Lockheed Martin Corporation, flew Australian journalists, myself included, to its plants in Fort Worth, Texas, and Orlando, Florida, to examine the project. The information I gathered through that trip, including from US Air Force personnel, is helpful in understanding the actual status of the jets and the production program.<\/p>\n

So, on to some of the claims.<\/p>\n

Are JSF pilots voting with their feet?<\/p>\n

No. US Air Force pilots across all aircraft types are being recruited by airlines that can pay more than the US government, but JSF pilots aren\u2019t unique in this situation. The pattern of competitive recruitment from airlines recurs as economic conditions change.<\/p>\n

JSF pilots I have spoken to say the stealthy, multi-purpose fifth-generation jet is easy to fly, revolutionary in its capabilities, and very popular with those operating it.<\/p>\n

On the claim that Russian and Chinese aircraft are superior, Lockheed Martin employees said that on the scant information available about aircraft such as the PLA\u2019s Chengdu J-20 fighter and Russia\u2019s Su-57, it appeared that both lagged the F-35 by 10 to 15 years in terms of stealth and other key capabilities. The Russians seem to have switched effort across to the Su-35, maybe showing the developmental and funding difficulty they were having with the Su-57.<\/p>\n

The head of ASPI\u2019s defence and strategy program, Michael Shoebridge, says various analysts tend to toss up comparisons between the JSF and the Russian and Chinese aircraft and usually combine this with a list of JSF developmental problems over time.<\/p>\n

Shoebridge says that what these critics miss in their analysis is the exhaustive scrutiny of such US projects through the transparency built into them. The US government, through Congress, the US Department of Defense and the US Government Accountability Office, has provided reams of warts-and-all disclosure on the development of the JSF. In contrast, there\u2019s almost no disclosure of the developmental difficulties in the Russian and Chinese programs.<\/p>\n

This leads to analysis focusing on the JSF\u2019s problems, while these other nations\u2019 capability programs are almost assumed to have no issues. That is likely to lead to two consequences:<\/p>\n