F-35s Lure Buyers as a Question Looms: How Will It Do in Combat?

(Bloomberg) -- Lockheed Martin Corp.’s F-35 has deployed from the Gulf of Aden to Alaska and is coveted by would-be buyers led by the United Arab Emirates. But the simulated combat testing needed to tell how well it would fare against Russian, Chinese or Iranian air defenses may be delayed yet again.

The intensive combat simulation testing of the fighter jet, which was supposed to occur in 2017 and most recently was set for this December, is almost certain to slip into next year because of difficulties finishing technical preparations, according to the Pentagon’s weapons buyer and testing office.

Resolution of “defects” in the simulation set-up “will likely drive” the tests into next year, Jessica Maxwell, a spokeswoman for Ellen Lord, the Defense Department’s undersecretary for acquisition, said in an email. It’s the latest twist in a 19-year-long tale of setbacks spawned by the decision to build the Pentagon’s most expensive weapons program ever even as it’s still being developed.

The one-month, 64-sortie “Joint Simulation Environment” exercise will use a full replica of the F-35 cockpit rigged with its combat sensors and electronics. A pilot at the Patuxent River Naval Air Station in Maryland, will operate in a fully functioning simulator with a 360-degree view that depicts classified air and ground threats and incorporates allied aircraft as well.

The exercise will be the capstone of a testing regime required by U.S. law before Lockheed can proceed into full-rate production and assure customers from South Korea to Poland that the plane is effective and can be maintained. Most recently, the UAE is seeking U.S. approval to buy F-35s now that it has signed on to an accord with Israel engineered by President Donald Trump’s administration.

Full-Rate Production

The testing is also a key hurdle before the Pentagon can buy the bulk of the aircraft destined for the U.S. military. The decision on full-rate production was supposed to occur in March, but that deadline, as well as the completion of all testing for it, “remain high risk,” Maxwell, the spokeswoman said.

“We expect to make a decision in October” about the schedule after a Pentagon Defense Acquisition Board review, Maxwell said.

Versions of the F-35 already have flown hundreds of aerial exercises, deployed for overseas operations by the Marines and Air Force and attacked Taliban targets in Afghanistan. The Air Force’s 356th Fighter Squadron of F-35A jets is stationed at Eielson Air Base in Alaska, on alert for Asia missions against Russia or China.

That’s happening even though the $398 billion fighter program hasn’t been evaluated in the simulations intended to challenge the planes beyond the most stressful threats likely to occur in real-world flying.

The Defense Department’s F-35 program office is reevaluating the schedule “based on feedback from the test community related to minimum acceptable required capabilities within the simulation facility,” said spokeswoman Brandi Schiff.

Lord and Robert Behler, the Pentagon’s top testing official, visited the testing facility on Aug. 25 “to better understand progress and where help is needed to complete” the testing, Maxwell said. Behler said in a statement that chances are “extremely low” that the simulations will be completed in December.

China Challenge

In a prime example of the challenges the F-35 could face, the Pentagon’s latest annual report on China’s military capabilities says “it has one of the world’s largest forces of advanced long-range surface-to-air systems -- including Russian-built S-400s, S-300s, and domestically produced systems -- that constitute part of its robust and redundant integrated air defense system architecture.”

The simulation exercise to test the F-35 was supposed to be ready three years ago, but “the program has struggled to develop the complex software and functionality needed to complete” it, the Government Accountability Office said in its annual program report in April.

Behler, the testing chief, said that he wasn’t considering canceling the simulation sorties. Because of the “inherent limitations of open-air testing,” the simulation facility “is the only venue available, other than actual combat against peer adversaries, to adequately evaluate the F-35 against modern airborne and surface threats in realistic densities,” he said.

Once all the testing is complete, it will take an additional two to three months to “transfer and analyze the data, and then draft” the final report for delivery to Pentagon leaders and Congress, Behler said previously.

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