Industry, the Department of Defense (DOD) and some U.S. Air Force (USAF) leadership still want the public to believe that the service needs the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF).
The aircraft is irrelevant for the needs of the service. The following will show how the USAF will use fighter aircraft.
High end air-to-air and ground-to-air threats; first, once these are taken care of, you don’t need a stealth aircraft for the rest of the air campaign. For this kind of threat, the service already has a solution. It is called the F-22. Production wasn’t stopped because it was a bad or faulty design. It was stopped because the current leadership are ignorant about air power issues. It is the only aircraft that will be able to take on high end threats. And, the F-35 is not just a little F-22.
The F-16; the USAF should still procure this aircraft. For those still too slow to get it; once the F-22 does its work, current aircraft designs can do what ever they want. Medium-range battlefield surface-to-air missiles (SAMS), man-portable air-defense (MANPAD), anti-aircraft guns, and trash fire can all be avoided by aircraft carrying JDAM, laser-JDAM, JSOW and so on. I can touch you but you can’t touch me. This includes the ability to plink those threats when they are detected. This thinning of the herd is a common task in past wars and it will be used again.
For home air defense missions, the F-16 is good enough, and in the unlikely event that it isn’t, we come back to the topic of the F-22.
The F-16 is still in production and the modern variants still hold a lot of capability. Also, the USAF already has a training and sustainment infrastructure along with existing tribal knowledge that supports the F-16. Just like the F-35, we don’t need a lot of these aircraft either. A fighter group of two squadrons each at or near our 20 most likely home defense bases would be fine. One squadron does the home defense, the other prepares for expeditionary war.
The Pacific and range; look at a map if you must. The USAF needs to re-invest in long range strike aircraft. The B-52, B-2, B-1 and F-15E will not be around forever. Years back, the USAF was looking at a long range theatre bomber in the form of the FB-22. At the time, this was sound thinking. While not a long range bomber like the B-2, the FB-22 would be survivable and carry enough payload and have enough reach for a wide variety of operations. This, combined with the USAF displaying some common sense and getting in on the U.S. Navy UCAS-N program would provide great future options (and deterrence) in the Pacific Rim. The Federal Budget may be in such dire straits that it won’t be able to afford a long range bomber program in the coming years.
Air breathing intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) in high threat areas can only be done by platforms like the F-22 (with its AN/ALR-94 and APG-77), the FB-22 and UCAS-N or similar bat-wing drones.
The USAF must continue to provide some value to the defense of the United States and its interests. Investing in a short-range fighter aircraft that doesn’t bring anything useful to the high-end air power spectrum of the USAF doesn’t make sense. When the high-end threats are subdued, current low-risk fighter designs like the F-16 still provide value.
In short: stop the USAF F-35 requirement, continue production of the F-22, and F-16 for the USAF. Along with that, research and development should be put into the FB-22 and the UCAS-N.
The top DOD and USAF leadership have not demonstrated that they know what they are doing with the fighter and strike roadmap for what is a critical part of the nations defense. Their style of leadership along with the USAF requirement for the F-35 must be removed as both provide more harm than good.
