The F-35 Lightning II, in record time, is now one of the most significant postmodern fighter planes ever constructed. It’s not merely another plane—it’s the way America and its allies are going to define air power in the future. With stealth, precision, and awareness of the situation to never-before-seen degrees, the F-35 is less a weapon system than a co-concept of global proportion, a revolution in technology, and an economic titan smashed into living flesh.
It began with the Joint Strike Fighter program to consolidate all the different aviators in the Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps into one fighter aircraft that would be able to carry many mission capabilities. Lockheed Martin X-35 won the contract, and three variants have been produced ever since: F-35A for conventional takeoff and landing, F-35B for short takeoff and vertical landing, and F-35C for naval employment.
While there is a benefit to each of the versions, all of them are bound together by the same goal: to fly through hostile airspace, dive on target, and offer pilots the types of situational awareness that all earlier fighters lacked.
The program also included international collaboration in its plan. The United Kingdom, Italy, Canada, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, and Australia were among the founding members at a relatively early stage. The airplane spread to Israel, Japan, and South Korea through other arrangements and hence was effectively a multinational endeavor.
One of the reasons F-35 survives is that it has a kind of expansiveness to it. The aircraft was made to expand and renew itself, and its current cycle of renewal—Block 4—is premised on a next-generation hardware of raw capability in the form of Technology Refresh 3 (TR-3). It contains even greater computing power, sensor fusion, and weapon carriage so that the airframe remains current with maturing threats.
Having such systems running out there in the world is an ongoing challenge. The 388th and 419th Fighter Wings at Hill AFB, the 56th Fighter Wing at Luke AFB, and the 461st Flight Test Squadron at Edwards AFB work around the clock from testing the jet to having it do what it was designed to do.
In tests like Red Flag and in battle in the Middle East, the F-35 has performed its task admirably, with sensors putting together air, land, and sea power into a platform that previous planes could not handle.
Having also been responsible for training the future generation of pilots, the task of preparing the next generation in their wake has been of titanic proportions. Luke Air Base reached an unprecedented milestone in 2023 when its 1,000th F-35 graduated—a testament to the scale and scope of the training effort behind the fleet.
It does not pay for itself, though. The life-cycle cost of the program is over $2 trillion, the majority of which is in overhaul and maintenance. Even after efficiencies created by bill cutting, running costs are one of the largest F-35 issues.
Economically, the program is a behemoth. Over 1,000 planes have been delivered to date, and they add an estimated $72 billion annually to the US economy. It has approximately 290,000 program-related personnel and over 1,600 suppliers, making the F-35 one of the biggest defense-industrial undertakings in history.
Technically, the aircraft itself is stunning. F-35A has a single Pratt & Whitney F135 43,000-pound thrust engine, up to Mach 1.6, an annan 18,000-pound bombs and missiles payload capacity. The F-35C, the sea variant, has more robust landing gear and longer wings to handle catapult launching and arrested recovery from aircraft carriers’ flight deck at sea. Both aircraft also possess an elite sensor suite, AESA radar, Distributed Aperture System, and Electro-Optical Targeting System, and grant pilots a battlefield image like no other. With its estimated 8,000 flight hours, the plane will still soar through the skies of the 2070s. Ongoing modernization, such as Block 4, is necessary to stay current and ready to meet the audacious realities of combat in the future.
Over the next decade, the F-35 will remain at the forefront of allied airpower, with sixth-generation aircraft being the predominant majority. The challenge will be balancing the existing fleet of aircraft and expenditure on technology for the future while remaining ahead of the curve as the world grows more competitive.