F-35: the plane of all contradictions
Launched in the early 1990s, what was to become the JSF (Joint Strike Fighter) programme was intended to produce a low-cost multiple fighter capable of meeting all the needs of US forces and their allies. A quarter of a century later, and more than 950 F-35 Lightning IIs have been produced and delivered, Lockheed Martin's fighter is still not fully operational, and has a long list of technical faults and operational limitations, which has not prevented it from flooding the world's fighter aircraft market. Here's a quick look at the aircraft that is the source of all the contradictions.
In a previous article (1), we looked in detail at the F-35's setbacks, and in particular the disastrous management of the aircraft's upgrades, which at the time provoked a veritable outcry from US parliamentarians and certain former programme managers. While the war in Ukraine and rising tensions in the China Sea have quietly silenced most dissenting voices, Lockheed Martin's aircraft has nonetheless experienced several high-profile problems in recent months. In September 2022, deliveries of the F-35 were temporarily halted in order to investigate the presence on board of alloys of Chinese origin. The following month, the much-publicised crash of an F-35B during an acceptance flight led to a halt in deliveries of Pratt & Whitney F135 engines and the grounding of part of the fleet while the offending piece of pipework was identified and replaced.
More importantly, almost none of the issues we raised in 2021 were actually resolved in 2023. This is particularly true of the aircraft's two main refurbishment objectives, Technical refresh 3 (TR-3) and Block 4, which continue to accumulate delays and cost overruns, despite some timid advances, and a few statements that raise hopes as much as concerns.
Imprecise upgrades
After the relative failure of Block 3F, it is now the Block 4 hardware and software standard that should provide the F-35 with all the functionalities - more or less degraded - originally planned for the programme, more than two decades after the aircraft's first flight. On paper, Block 4 will be the first stable and complete version of the aircraft, and should finally provide it with a full anti-ship capability, an extended anti-A2AD capability, the ability to carry nuclear bombs, as well as a significant enhancement of its electronic warfare capabilities.
Continuous capability development and delivery (C2D2)/Block 4 was designed to adopt an agile approach to the incremental development of the F-35. A number of components essential to the future Block 4 are gradually being incorporated into Block 3F production aircraft. From 2023, aircraft produced under lots 15 to 17 should be delivered with the TR-3 structural upgrade, which includes a new cockpit interface, new, more powerful computers, hardware improvements to the electro-optical sensors (EOTS) and even an update to the electronic warfare suite, as early as next year.
In theory, these aircraft will be able to accept the Block 4 software standard without any major modifications, with only two or three weeks downtime, whereas aircraft already delivered with the TR-2 standard will have to undergo a huge (and costly) modernisation programme. But the exact cost and scale of the switch to Block 4 is not yet known. The most optimistic estimates put the cost of converting an aircraft from the TR-2 standard to a TR-3 standard with certain Block 4 functionalities at at least 25 million dollars. However, it seems increasingly clear that the real Block 4, which is not expected before 2029, will be much more ambitious than initially envisaged.
While the initial plan was to equip the entire F-35 fleet with the APG-81 Active Electronic Antenna Radar (AESA), Northrop Grumman announced in January 2023 that it had been selected to develop the APG-85, a new radar based on its APG-81, but whose antenna would incorporate new-generation GaN (gallium nitride) components instead of GaAs (gallium arsenide). This new radar, which could be fitted to TR-3s as early as 2025, will be at the heart of the Block 4 detection and electronic warfare suite. And since GaN components withstand heat much better than GaAs, the temptation will undoubtedly be great to push the new antenna to its limits, imposing greater energy consumption.
This incremental approach, also adopted for the Rafale's F4 standard, is not a bad idea in itself, since it ensures that the aircraft delivered are systematically equipped with the latest technological developments. However, in the case of the F-35, it raises a number of backward compatibility problems. While aircraft delivered from the TR-3 onwards will natively use the ODIN logistics system, older aircraft will have to continue to use the ALIS suite, forcing the air force to juggle with two systems renowned for their complexity and repeated errors. And these problems of double standards could increase in the future, including for hardware components, given that the definitive Block 4 standard is not really set in stone and that, at the same time, the provisions made for the TR-3 are calculated as accurately as possible. This is a recurring problem on the F-35, where the stealth of the airframe systematically means installing new equipment in a fuselage that is already crowded and has an undersized cooling system. This blind incremental approach is responsible for numerous delays and cost overruns, but also tends to limit the retrofit capability of older aircraft.
Is the world's most powerful engine lacking in power?
One of the most symptomatic examples of the problems posed by this approach concerns the re-engining of the F-35. The new engine was not selected until March 2023, to be integrated into the TR-3 with a view to bringing Block 4 into service. The problem is that the TR-3 began flight testing two months earlier, and is due to start being delivered to customers in the summer of 2023 with a standard engine bay, which means that the new engine will have to offer improved performance while retaining the format, interface and inlet airflow of the current engine.
For several years now, those in charge of the aircraft's development have been pointing out that the future Block 4 will be severely lacking in power. That's quite an understatement when you consider that Pratt & Whitney's F135 is the most powerful engine ever fitted to a fighter jet. In reality, the F135 is not necessarily short of thrust, but rather of power generation capacity. What's more, the current F135 heats up enormously, posing real problems for the heat dissipation of the other on-board equipment, which will consume more and more energy as the Blocks go on.
For Block 4, consideration was at one stage given to equipping the F-35 with a new-generation engine from the AETP (Adaptive Engine Transition Programme), which aimed to offer a variable-cycle engine capable of greatly improving the aircraft's range, in addition to solving the problems of heat dissipation and electrical production. In the end, it was decided to opt for a more conservative solution by simply upgrading the existing F135, theoretically allowing greater backward compatibility with the current F-35. In its ECU (Engine core update) version, the F135 should therefore be pushed to the limit to enable full exploitation of the Block 4 standard.
However, this new engine is not expected before 2030, even though the Block 4 is still officially scheduled for 2029. Notwithstanding possible - and very likely - delays, this means that a significant proportion of F-35 Block 4s (whether delivered as such, or retrofitted from TR-2s) will initially be delivered with the old engine. The latter will probably have to operate for at least a few years with degraded systems, pending an eventual change of engine.
Commercial success and foggy pricing policy
Since 2021, and even more so since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, contracts have been signed with Finland, Switzerland and Poland, while Greece, the Czech Republic, Thailand and Romania have officially expressed an interest in the aircraft. So, despite a programme management that could magnanimously be described as chaotic, the F-35 continues to rack up export contracts. The American stealth fighter can count on flawless communication from Lockheed Martin, which manages to turn the slightest problem into a commercial opportunity. For example, the F-35's low availability and heavy maintenance requirements reduce the number of flying hours available for a given fleet. Not that it matters! In Switzerland, where Lockheed has offered to provide more simulator hours as compensation, the limitation is presented as an excellent way of reducing fuel consumption, pollution and noise pollution.
In other countries, such as Australia, South Korea and the Netherlands, maintaining the initial operational contract simply means ordering additional aircraft, if the F-35s already delivered cannot be made to fly any more. In any case, Lockheed Martin stands to gain. In addition to its builder's baguette, the F-35 is also benefiting greatly from the diplomatic steamroller of the US State Department, which is throwing all its weight behind the new spearhead of the US armed forces in all the markets where it is competing, even if it means crushing other American competitors, such as the Super Hornet. Officially, of course, the F-35 is winning every market thanks to its extraordinary competitiveness. However, this competitiveness raises a number of questions.
Although FMS (Foreign Military Sales) contracts officially prohibit selling at a loss, it seems clear that the F-35 is, at best, offered at cost price on all highly competitive markets. Even if the prices offered contradict the Pentagon's internal figures. In Finland, for example, the F-35 in FMS mode was offered at a much lower price than the Super Hornet, also in FMS mode, with a delta that in no way corresponds to that observed between the F-35A and the Super Hornet purchased for US forces. The Finnish F-35 is 34% cheaper than the Norwegian F-35, even though Oslo is a long-standing partner in the programme.
In fact, when selected against competing aircraft, off-the-shelf F-35s appear to be offered at a relatively contained price, between 80 and 100 million dollars each. Politically, this price tag justifies such purchases in the court of public opinion, but it does not reflect the real cost of the aircraft over its operational life. So, in addition to the $25 million already mentioned for upgrading from the TR-2 standard to the advanced TR-3, modernisation to the full Block 4 standard will require the purchase of an APG-85 radar and an F135 ECU engine, pushing the retrofit bill up to around $50 million. And that's without even mentioning the costs associated with compulsory subscriptions to ALIS and ODIN services or threat libraries. Knowing that some of the first Blocks cannot be modernised, we can imagine that several operators will have no choice but to order new aircraft.
With the development of Block 4 still in its infancy, the future of the F-35 seems hard to foresee. If Block 4 is developed in the same way as the previous standards, there is every reason to be seriously concerned about the possibility of retrofitting the 2,000 or so aircraft that will have been delivered between now and the advent of this new standard. The risk, therefore, is that the world's F-35 fleet will be divided into two categories, with on the one hand a basic F-35, equipped with the basic engine and radar, but with a stabilised system, and on the other a full-option F-35, natively equipped with the new engine, allowing full exploitation of the latest hardware and software advances. Ironically, if it comes down to it, it is the aircraft's first export customers, long-standing members of the JSF programme, who could be the least well off.
