Joint Strike Fighter Program
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The Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) became synomous with the later F-35 Lightning II, but up to 2001 there was heated competition between the Boeing X-32 and Lockheed Martin X-35. Even before the JSF, there was a period in which competing concepts and standards came together.
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[edit] Project formation and requirements evaluation
The JSF evolved from a DARPA program to develop a STOVL Strike Fighter (SSF) for the US Marine Corps and replacement for the F-16. The USAF passed over the F-16 Agile Falcon in the late 1980s, essentially an enlarge F-16, and continued to mull other designs. In 1992 the Marines and US Air Force agreed to jointly develop a Common, Lightweight Strike Fighter, based on the SSF.
The Joint Advanced Strike Technology (JAST) program was created in 1993, implementing one of the recommendations of a United States Department of Defense (DoD) "Bottom-Up Review to include the US Navy in the Common Strike Fighter program." (The review also led the Pentagon to continue the F-22 and F/A-18E/F programs, cancel the Multi-Role Fighter (MRF) and the A/F-X programs, and curtail F-16 and F/A-18C/D procurement.)
The JAST program office was established on 27 January 1994, to develop aircraft, weapons, and sensor technology with the aim of replacing several disparate U.S. and UK aircraft with a single family of aircraft (mainly it would replace F-16 in terms of numbers).
[edit] JSF Competition
Two contracts to develop prototypes were awarded on 16 November 1996, one each to Lockheed Martin and Boeing. Each firm would produce two aircraft to demonstrate conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL), carrier takeoff and landing (CV version), and short takeoff and vertical landing (STOVL).
Also in 1996, the UK Ministry of Defence launched the Future Carrier Borne Aircraft project. This program sought a replacement for the Sea Harrier (and later the Harrier GR7); the Joint Strike Fighter was selected in January 2001.
[edit] Competition Outcome
The contract for System Development and Demonstration (SDD) was awarded on 26 October 2001 to Lockheed Martin, whose X-35 beat the Boeing X-32. DoD officials and the UK Minister of Defence Procurement said the X-35 consistently outperformed the X-32, although both met or exceeded requirements.
[edit] Analysis of JSF program in United States services
The JSF program was designed to replace the F-16, A-10, F/A-18 and AV-8B fleet of tactical fighter aircraft in U.S. military service. Joint Strike Fighter critics[name a specific person/group] say that like the aircraft it is replacing, it has insufficient range to replace dedicated bombers; and as primarily a strike platform, its inability to supercruise limits it as an air defense platform, and as a new aircraft, that it is almost certain to suffer cost overruns and lengthy development delays.[citation needed] Indeed, through 2004, the JSF's total projected cost had risen 23% to US$244 billion, and as of April 2006 the Pentagon is projecting the budget to rise to US$276.4 billion.[citation needed]
A Reuters report in 2005 said that the Pentagon was seeking to cancel the Air Force version. This would see the Air Force adopt the larger Navy version.[1] Over a year later, no such move had been made.
Close air support theorists, especially those with experience flying the A-10 on those missions, are vocally skeptical about the F-35's capacity to carry out that role. They point to the claim during procurement of the F-16 that it would replace the A-10, which it did not, and to the F-35's similar shortcomings for the close air support mission, specifically its small gun and ammunition capacity, and the tight constraints on the number and variety of bombs and missiles it can carry in its stealth configuration -- not an issue when carrying external stores in a non-stealthy A-10-like configuration.[2]
Its defenders say the JSF was never intended to replace bombers or be an air defense platform, and they say a thorough requirements definition process with years of analysis and international participation has mitigated cost and schedule concerns. The potential solid state laser is also offered as an advantage for the close air support role, since aerial refueling would essentially also rearm the laser, which could be used even with enemy ground forces located too close to friendly ground forces for employment of explosive armaments.
Proponents say the multi-role design philosophy has been proven in combat by the F-16 Fighting Falcon and the F/A-18 Hornet, and point to several nations, mainly F-16 and F/A-18 users, that have committed substantial sums to become minority partners in the JSF manufacturing team. They say that even without substantial performance advances over existing aircraft, the F-35's stealthiness and information warfare technology make it an enticing product.
The program's advocates see the JSF's joint-development concept as an opportunity to break out of the decades-old pattern of U.S. military aircraft procurement, allowing commonality and saving development and operating costs. This follows the philosophy behind the SEPECAT Jaguar and Panavia Tornado international development programs. Accordingly, JSF is the first U.S. aircraft program to consider cost as an independent variable. Unlike earlier programs in which extra features always boosted the cost, such changes are not permitted in JSF development.
JSFs will feed diagnostic information into the ground-based Autonomic Logistic Information System, built by Lockheed Martin Simulation Training and Support, to make the aircraft less expensive to operate and maintain.
