Is The F-35 Strike Fighter The Military Chevy Volt?
Defense: Pilots who arrived a year ago to train on the fighter of the future are still waiting as safety concerns, cost overruns and questions about the whole program's feasibility mount.
The F-35 is meant to be America's next-generation fighter, the heir to the Air Force's F-15 Eagle and the Navy's and Marines' F/A-18 Hornet. Those two aircraft have fulfilled their air superiority and ground-attack roles well, yet many are well beyond their expected life expectancy.
The F-35 would fill America's defense needs in an age of budget constraints, we were told. So far it has not been a smooth takeoff.
About 35 of the best fighter pilots from the Air Force, Marines and Navy who arrived in the Florida Panhandle last year to learn to fly the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter are still waiting. They've been limited to occasionally taxying them and firing up the engines.
Otherwise, their training is limited to three F-35 flight simulators, classroom work and flights in older-model jets. Only a handful of pilots get to fly the F-35s.
Concerns have arisen, ranging from improperly installed parachutes under the pilots' ejector seats to whether the aircraft have been adequately tested.
Production has been slow and delayed, and the cost has risen from $233 billion to $385 billion. Only 43 F-35s have been built, and an additional 2,443 have been ordered by the Pentagon.
Part of the problem is that the F-35 is a one-size-fits-all aircraft designed to fit roles from taking off a carrier's deck to hovering and landing in a confined space on a foreign battlefield. It's meant to be a ground-attack and air-superiority fighter. The question is whether it can adequately be both.
As we learned in past conflicts, relying on one-size-fits-all aircraft can be perilous. Our reliance on the carrier-based F-4 Phantom during Vietnam is a case in point. An aircraft designed to hunt down Soviet bombers during the Cold War, it carried missiles but no guns and was ill-suited for dogfights against MiG fighters designed for a single role — that of air superiority.
That was the role originally designated for the F-22 Raptor, a stealth fighter designed to simply sweep the skies of enemy jets and let other aircraft do their thing. Production was stopped at only 187 planes, with the excuse given that we couldn't afford multiple aircraft for different roles. So the F-35 was designated as our flying jack-of-all-trades.
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The F-35 is meant to be America's next-generation fighter, the heir to the Air Force's F-15 Eagle and the Navy's and Marines' F/A-18 Hornet. Those two aircraft have fulfilled their air superiority and ground-attack roles well, yet many are well beyond their expected life expectancy.
The F-35 would fill America's defense needs in an age of budget constraints, we were told. So far it has not been a smooth takeoff.
About 35 of the best fighter pilots from the Air Force, Marines and Navy who arrived in the Florida Panhandle last year to learn to fly the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter are still waiting. They've been limited to occasionally taxying them and firing up the engines.
Otherwise, their training is limited to three F-35 flight simulators, classroom work and flights in older-model jets. Only a handful of pilots get to fly the F-35s.
Concerns have arisen, ranging from improperly installed parachutes under the pilots' ejector seats to whether the aircraft have been adequately tested.
Production has been slow and delayed, and the cost has risen from $233 billion to $385 billion. Only 43 F-35s have been built, and an additional 2,443 have been ordered by the Pentagon.
Part of the problem is that the F-35 is a one-size-fits-all aircraft designed to fit roles from taking off a carrier's deck to hovering and landing in a confined space on a foreign battlefield. It's meant to be a ground-attack and air-superiority fighter. The question is whether it can adequately be both.
As we learned in past conflicts, relying on one-size-fits-all aircraft can be perilous. Our reliance on the carrier-based F-4 Phantom during Vietnam is a case in point. An aircraft designed to hunt down Soviet bombers during the Cold War, it carried missiles but no guns and was ill-suited for dogfights against MiG fighters designed for a single role — that of air superiority.
That was the role originally designated for the F-22 Raptor, a stealth fighter designed to simply sweep the skies of enemy jets and let other aircraft do their thing. Production was stopped at only 187 planes, with the excuse given that we couldn't afford multiple aircraft for different roles. So the F-35 was designated as our flying jack-of-all-trades.
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