F-35 JSF – a concern for America and her allies?
Since America has discontinued production of the F-22 Raptor in favour of the F-35 JSF, are you concerned that for the first time America and her allies will experience a capability gap given that Russia and China are both making fast progress on Raptor-equivalent aircraft? This is no fault of Australia since by convention we purchase our aircraft from the US, however the raw performance of the JSF compared with the existing Russian Sukhoi Su-35 and the future 5th Generation PAK-FA (T-50) along with the newly displayed Chinese J-20 makes anyone with aviation knowledge uneasy. Both existing and planned Chinese and Russian aircraft are far superior in raw performance compared with the F-35 JSF: supercrusing, proper stealth (the rear of the JSF has a heat signature that lights up like a Christmas tree), thrust vectoring, range, speed and manoeuvrability. While the F-35’s avionics package will be second to none, it seems rather useless when due to the airframe it is unable to be employed effectively.
If I may, in your opinion why has America gone down the JSF path? Yes it is a multirole aircraft, however it is designed for CAS and other roles the existing F-16 fulfils yet it is being marketed as a “one size fits all” aircraft capable of effectively satisfying all roles from air superiority through to interception, strike, interdiction and CAS. America has always, up until now in my opinion, employed a variety of mission-specific aircraft to build the US Air Force as it stands today. They had the F-15 (now F-22) for air superiority and interception, F-16 for CAS and basic multirole and the Hornet family for carrier operations. Now it appears as though due to the limited Raptor numbers the JSF is going to be used to fulfil all the mission roles. Personally I see this as a critical flaw which will be to the detriment of Australia’s air power. If I recall correctly during the legacy Hornet acquisition Australia decided not to acquire the F-16 Viper principally because it has only one engine and considering we are a country surrounded by water this presents an obvious concern. I assume this method of decision making was not employed during the JSF decision making.
Unfortunately for us here in Australia we really had no choice but to go with the US F-35 JSF as there were no real alternatives available. Even if we had access to the Raptor it would be foolish to believe the F-22 could fulfil all the roles, the same goes for having only the JSF. Ideally, in my opinion, the RAAF should have had a mixed structure with both F-22 and F-35 aircraft complementing each other. Perhaps there is sense in the old saying "don’t put all your eggs in the one basket"....
