From a friend close to the program:
F-35 Program Leaders Set The Record Straight On Performance (Posted: Monday, September 22, 2008)
Two executives—one from Lockheed Martin and one from the Department of Defense—joined forces Friday to set the record straight on the Joint Strike Fighter program, countering recent media reports that have contained numerous falsehoods about the aircraft and its performance.
Tom Burbage, Lockheed Martin Executive Vice President of F-35 Program Integration, and Maj. Gen. C.R. Davis, F-35 Program Executive Officer, in a news release issued today cited, among other falsehoods, the claim that Russian fighters defeated F-35s in a simulated combat exercise.
That exercise—the Pacific Vision Wargame—was a table-top exercise designed to assess basing and force-structure vulnerabilities, and did not include air-to-air combat exercises or any comparisons of different aircraft platforms.
"The reports are completely false and misleading and have absolutely no basis in fact," Maj. Gen. Davis said. "The August 2008 Pacific Vision Wargame that has been referenced recently in the media did not even address air-to-air combat effectiveness. The F-35 is required to be able to effectively defeat current and projected air-to-air threats. All available information, at the highest classification, indicates that F-35 is effectively meeting these aggressive operational challenges."
The two executives characterized the F-35 as a "racehorse,” adding that in a stealth configuration, the F-35 aerodynamically outperforms all other combat-configured 4th generation aircraft in top-end speed, loiter, subsonic acceleration and combat radius.
Further, U.S. Air Force analyses show the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II is at least 400 percent more effective in air-to-air combat capability than the best fighters currently available in the international market.
Other erroneous allegations about the program were recently made in a letter distributed and written by industry-watchers Winston Wheeler and Pierre Sprey.
"It's not clear why they attacked the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program," said Tom Burbage, Lockheed Martin executive vice president of F-35 program integration. "It is clear they don't understand the underlying requirements of the F-35 program, the capabilities needed to meet those requirements or the real programmatic performance of the JSF team."
The F-35 is a supersonic, multi-role, 5th generation stealth fighter. Three F-35 variants derived from a common design, developed together and using the same sustainment infrastructure worldwide will replace at least 13 types of aircraft for 11 nations initially, making the Lightning II the most cost-effective fighter program in history. Two F-35s have entered flight test, two are in ground test, and 17 are in various stages of assembly, including the first two production-model jets scheduled for delivery to the U.S. Air Force in 2010.
