F-35 Air Combat Skills Analyzed

[Angleae]

The F-35's ability to win an air-to-air engagement is drawing increased attention as the U.S. military and industry's focus includes expanding the Joint Strike Fighter's customer base beyond the core purchasing nations.

For years, prime contractor Lockheed Martin seemed content to promote the F-35's "strike fighter" capabilities, if only to avoid competing against its other major fighter program, the F-22 Raptor. But with the F-22 not exportable, Lockheed Martin seems keen to talk up the F-35's air combat skills to bolster its chances for new foreign military sales -- namely, to Japan, Turkey and Greece.

The contractor tells Aviation Week that the JSF's combination of stealth, multisensor situational awareness, advanced pilot-machine interface and basic aeromechanical performance make it a credible fighter aircraft, too. That is key to several other customers, who cannot afford the so-called high-low fighter mix on which the U.S., U.K. and Italian air forces are planning.

But Lockheed Martin is focusing largely on the beyond-visual-range fight, with ranges greater than 18 naut. mi. that executives say will represent 62% of all aerial combat. Another 31% of engagements would fall into the 8-18-naut.-mi. transition range, and just 7% of fighting would be close-in combat where the airframe is stressed the most.

http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,186349,00.html