US Air Force Declares F-35A Ready For Combat (defensenews.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Defense News: The U.S. Air Force on Tuesday declared its first squadron of F-35As ready for battle, 15 years after Lockheed Martin won the contract to make the plane. The milestone means that the service can now send its first operational F-35 formation -- the 34th Fighter Squadron located at Hill Air Force Base, Utah -- into combat operations anywhere in the world. The service, which plans to buy 1,763 F-35As, is the single-largest customer of the joint strike fighter program, which also includes the U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Navy and a host of governments worldwide. "Given the national security strategy, we need it," [Air Combat Command (ACC) head Gen. Herbert "Hawk" Carlisle] said. "You look at the potential adversaries out there, or the potential environments where we have to operate this airplane, the attributes that the F-35 brings -- the ability to penetrate defensive airspace, the ability to deliver precision munitions with a sensor suite that fuses data from multiple information sources -- is something our nation needs." Carlisle said in July that even though he would feel comfortable sending the F-35 to a fight as soon as the jet becomes operational, ACC has formed a "deliberate path" where the aircraft would deploy in stages: first to Red Flag exercises, then as a "theater security package" to Europe and the Asia-Pacific. The fighter probably won't deploy to the Middle East to fight the Islamic State group any earlier than 2017, he said, but if a combatant commander asked for the capability, "I'd send them down in a heartbeat because they're very, very good." The declaration is another achievement for the $379 billion program -- the Pentagon's largest weapons project -- following the declaration of a first squadron of F-35s ready for combat made by the U.S. Marine Corps in July 2015.

Comments

Correction.

[msauve]

"first to Red Flag exercises, then as a "theater security package" to Europe and the Asia-Pacific. "

They transposed "security theater."

Wasn't this the multi-trillion-dollar failure?

[bluefoxlucid]

I thought we were running articles about how the F35-A carries shit for weapons, turns like an aircraft carrier, can't dogfight, and cost hundreds of billions of dollars every year for decades only to turn out a worthless piece of shit after the trillions settled. Did Slashdot get bought recently?

Re: Wasn't this the multi-trillion-dollar failure?

[Rei]

The ejection risk is to lightweight pilots ( < 136 lbs / 62 kg). The temporary solution thusfar has just been to ban lightweight pilots from flying it. Ejection is an inherently very stressful act on the body. For lightweight pilots on the F35, it's too stressful.

Only the F-35A has a 25mm cannon at all; obviously systems common to all aircraft have priority. The cannon is new - a lighter and more accurate version of the GAU-12/U. The schedule is for the gun to go online in 2017. It was on schedule last I checked.

As for the GP, I'll let actual pilots of the aircraft respond. And note that that is about dogfighting, an increasingly less relevant portion of an aircraft's activity. The whole philosophy behind the F-35 is to detect and engage targets from further away than they can detect and engage the F-35. Aka, if the F-35 is in a dogfight, it's already done something wrong to begin with.

Window dressing: IOC does NOT equal combat ready

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.defense-aerospace.com/articles-view/feature/5/170838/a-closer-look-at-dot%26e-report-on-f_35-%3Ci%3E(updated)%3C%C2%A7i%3E.html

The Block 2B version of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which the Marine Corps declared operational in July last year, is not capable of unsupported combat against any serious threat, according to Michael Gilmore, the Pentagon’s director of operational test and evaluation (DOT&E).

http://aviationweek.com/defense/test-report-points-f-35-s-combat-limits-0?NL=AW-05&Issue=AW-05_20160201_AW-05_373&sfvc4enews=42&cl=article_1

http://aviationweek.com/site-files/aviationweek.com/files/uploads/2016/01/DOT%26E%202015%20F-35%20Annual%20Report.pdf

The pentagon must be geting pretty desperate.

Re:I will believe it when a PILOT says that

[jfdavis668]

The F-104 wasn't designed poorly, but it was designed as a very high speed fighter. At low speed the plane was hard to handle. Pilots weren't getting enough experience on it before having an accident. This was before fly by wire and computer control. The F-16 is designed to be highly unstable, but is controlled by its computer. A pilot could not control one without computer assistance. Technology makes a huge difference.

Government-flavored FUD.

[geekmux]

"...You look at the potential adversaries out there, or the potential environments..."

Uhhh, potential? That's the best you can do here? Exactly how many metric fucktons of FUD does one need in order to justify over 1,700 aircraft and a $380 billion dollar price tag?

This kind of shit scares me because of what the US might be inclined to get involved in, for no other reason other than to justify this little shopping spree.