A not-so-stealthy aircraft?

There appear to be problems, finally, with the F-35s performance. Perhaps most strikingly, the plane’s geometry means that it is significantly stealthy (that is, able to avoid early detection and ‘lock-on’ by enemy radar) only from directly in front. Together with recent and ongoing improvements in air defence radar systems, this suggests that the F-35 will be unable to reliably carry out its primary ground-attack role unless air defences have already been disabled by more capably stealthy fighters like the F22.[16]

In other respects as well the F-35 has been harshly criticized. Winslow Wheeler has called the aircraft a „gigantic performance disappointment,” with sluggish aerodynamics and merely average performance as a bomber.[17] Although it is being marketed as a multi-role aircraft, the F-35 appears to be overmatched by other currently available fighter aircraft, in terms both of the weaponry it can carry and its powers of evasion. One expert has quoted Major Richard Koch, chief of the USAF Air Combat Command’s advanced air dominance branch, as saying: „I wake up in a cold sweat at the thought of the F-35 going in with only two air-dominance weapons.”[18] And in a recent computer-simulation wargame conducted in Australia which matched F-35s against new-generation Russian fighters, the F-35s were outmaneuvered, out-climbed, and outrun[19]—or, as one report brutally put it, they were „clubbed like baby seals.”[20]

Some of the basic facts about the F-35’s limitations have been usefully summarized by the Australian expert, and F-35 opponent, Carlo Kopp:

„The F-35 is an aircraft which was defined as a battlefield interdictor, intended to attack and destroy hostile battlefield ground forces, once opposing air defences have been stripped away by the much more capable, and now cheaper F-22 Raptor. The JSF aircraft was defined for a very narrow niche role, and its intended performance and capabilities were constrained to avoid overlapping other US Air Force capability niches, such as ‘deep strike’ occupied by the F-15E and F-22A, and ‘air dominance’, occupied by the F-22A.

”The actual F-35 aircraft, as it has ‘devolved’ through a problematic and protracted development process, shows all the signs of falling well below the promised and mediocre performance targets set in the original definition document.