Aug. 16, 2015<\/p>\n
The controversy surrounding the US F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) is still simmering, prompting experts to pose the question: what if the United States Air Force had dropped the F-35 many years earlier?<\/strong><\/p>\n The Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the Pentagon’s newest and most expensive warplane ever, has become a great disappointment for\u00a0the United States Air Force and sparked fierce criticism from\u00a0Western experts and lawmakers.<\/p>\n “[H]ad the Pentagon foregone developing an entirely new fighter jet, the $100 billion it has spent to\u00a0date on\u00a0the F-35 project would have bought about\u00a0740 Eurofighter Typhoons. Euro-anything, of\u00a0course, is hardly the USAF’s style, and the War Department hasn’t bought a French fighter since\u00a01918,” US expert James Has\u00edk, a senior fellow at\u00a0the Brent Scowcroft Center on\u00a0International Security, noted.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Indeed, besides\u00a0the US Air Force, the Navy and Marines were hoping that the new fighter jet would provide them with\u00a0new unbeatable advantage in\u00a0the skies. It has turned out\u00a0however that although the project was $165 billion over\u00a0budget, the plane has not performed as\u00a0it was widely advertised.<\/p>\n The main complaint is that the F-35 is less maneuverable than\u00a0the F-22. In July, 2015 Australian Federal Parliament member Dr. Dennis Jensen emphasized in\u00a0his Op-Ed “Time to\u00a0Remember the Vietnam Air War Lesson” that the plane’s manufacturer had obviously forgotten the bitter lessons of\u00a0the Vietnam War.<\/p>\n Referring to\u00a0the US military doctrine of\u00a0the 1950s, Jensen noted that it claimed the era of “dogfighting” was over. As a result, America’s F-4 Phantom planes had advanced air search and targeting radars, eight air-to-air missiles, and other sophisticated equipment. However, since\u00a0the days of “dogfighting” were purportedly over, the F-4 Phantom was designed without\u00a0a gun, Jensen pointed out.<\/p>\n “Then came the moment of\u00a0truth. The might of\u00a0the United States, with\u00a0the highly sophisticated F-4 Phantom, was supposed to\u00a0easily destroy opposing enemy fighters like\u00a0the MiG-17. The obsolescent MiG-17 had no air combat radar or long-range missiles, but\u00a0the aircraft had guns. In combat, the missiles did not work as\u00a0advertised, and the agile MiG-17 caused the F-4 all sorts of\u00a0problem,” the Australian MP underscored.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n “[I]t is clear the JSF will be dead meat if it ever comes to\u00a0close range combat with\u00a0decades-old fighters,” Jensen pointed out.<\/p>\n Interestingly enough, in\u00a0an interview with\u00a0RT, famed US aerospace engineer Pierre Sprey, the co-designer of\u00a0the F-16 Falcon jet and the A-10 Warthog tank buster, remarked that the infamous F-35 “would be ripped to\u00a0shreds even by\u00a0the antiquated MiG-21,” let alone a dogfight with\u00a0Russia’s fourth-generation Su-27 and MiG-29 jets.<\/p>\n What makes matters even worse is that many experts consider the project an outrageous waste of\u00a0money.<\/p>\n The RAND Corporation, a nonprofit research and analysis institution, stated that although the Pentagon has pursued numerous joint aircraft programs, including the recent F-35 Joint Strike Fighter project in\u00a0order to\u00a0reduce Life Cycle Cost (LCC), it has obviously failed to\u00a0accomplish this mission. Moreover, the programs lead to\u00a0even higher overall costs.<\/p>\n “Unless the participating services have identical, stable requirements, the US Department of\u00a0Defense should avoid future joint fighter and other complex joint aircraft development programs,” RAND’s analysts recommended, bemoaning the fact that the presence of\u00a0fewer prime contractors in\u00a0the US market undermines the potential for\u00a0future competition and “makes costs more difficult to\u00a0control.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n