The U.S. Air Force’s chief of staff wants the service to develop an affordable, lightweight fighter to replace hundreds of aging F-16s and complement a small fleet of sophisticated F-35 stealth fighters. But an affordable, lightweight fighter is exactly what the F-35 was first conceived to be.
Stealth is very useful when going against outdated anti-air wepaons, which may not even be able to get a lock until the aircraft is practically above them. And since the US tends to mainly pick fights with destitute farmers and not modern organized military forces, I'd say it will be at least partially useful for decades to come.
There will always be a use case for it, yes. But committing to it as our main penetration method (and the AF letting their EW capability run down as part of the F35 anticipation) is very short sighted.
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They did that? If anything I'd think EW would be the one area where F35s would be completely state-of-the-art.
Yeah, because Lockheed Martin said F35s would have built in EW capability, so the AF would no longer need dedicated EW aircraft. Now, the F35 does have a built in EW system, but, because it's EW I can't really find how effective it is, of course. There are upgrades on it being done by the Navy and the Israelis, but honestly that might just be normal for a program.
Oh ok, I get what you mean. I thought you were talking about the EW capability of the F35s themselves.