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

Ready to

[Anonymous Coward]

Its unlikely it will ever engage another jet in a combat role, countries we fight are too poor for jets, countries with jets have too much power to attack and know we are too powerful to attack too or our allies.

Its ready to be a glorified bomber, bombing mostly suspected terrorists.

Re:Ready to

[Joce640k]

One word: Drones.

Re:Ready to

[bobbied]

Its unlikely it will ever engage another jet in a combat role, countries we fight are too poor for jets, countries with jets have too much power to attack and know we are too powerful to attack too or our allies.

Its ready to be a glorified bomber, bombing mostly suspected terrorists.

The F-35 is not intended to be an air superiority fighter, it's intended to be a multi-role close air support (bomb delivery platform) that can hold it's own in an environment where control of the air may still be an open question. It is the role of the Air Force's F-22 to clear the skies of the opposition and engage them before they reach the F-35's area of operation. So, the F-35's A-A offensive capability is intended to keep it flying (i.e. so it can get away) and not so it can win a dogfight. It's primary purpose is to be an economical delivery truck, designed to deliver death and destruction on the enemy's ground forces and survive the round trip. For that role, it is well suited should it ever meet it's design specifications.

Re:Ready to

[hawguy]

Nothing about the F-35 precludes development of drones though, and the West already seems to be leading the way on that front too.

Except the cost -- you don't spend over a trillion dollars (projected cost for deployment + operations) on a platform, then let it sit idle while you send in the drones.

There's no reason the F-35 couldn't in itself be the basis of a drone.

Again, cost. Why turn a $150M+ airframe into a drone when you can use a purpose built drone for a fraction of the cost? Removing the pilot from the plane removes a lot of design constraints, so it makes little sense to turn a human piloted aircraft into a drone.

Re:Window dressing: IOC does NOT equal combat read

[amiga3D]

The F-35 is a failure already. That wont stop them from buying them though.

Re:Lawn Dart

[JeffOwl]

By stating how "bad" the F-16 works with one engine you have eliminated your credibility on the subject with a single sentence. Have a nice day.

Re:The irony is...

[drinkypoo]

The aircraft is already run by computers. It could probably become a drone with a software update.

It certainly could, but you don't build drones that powerful, complicated, and expensive for a variety of reasons. Since they don't need pilots, it makes a lot more sense to build more but cheaper aircraft, since that way you get more redundancy.

Neat

[DogDude]

Neat. The US can kill more people, faster. Meanwhile US citizens are in debt up to their eyeballs for education and healthcare.