Almost 10 years after it first flew, the stealthy Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter has been declared ready for combat by the U.S. Air Force.
The first Air Force F-35 squadron, the 34th Fighter Squadron located at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, flies the F-35A version of this stealth fighter that will replace the F-16 Fighting Falcon. The 34th has 12 combat-ready F-35s that can be deployed anywhere in the world. The $379 billion F-35 program is the Pentagon's largest weapons project.
The F-35A, which is a conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL) jet, will be fully combat ready with the Air force by 2017 after an important software upgrade. The Air Force Air Combat Command will initially deploy the F-35A to Red Flag exercises and as a "theater security package" to the Asia-Pacific and Europe.
The Air Force's decision to declare the F-35 combat ready follows a similar decision by the U.S. Marine Corps in July 2015. The U.S. Navy is expected to declare its F-35C jets operational by 2018.
The Pentagon will deploy the Marines' F-35B jets to Japan this December as tensions with China over the South China Sea continue to simmer. It said 10 F-35B Joint Strike Fighters of the U.S. Marine Corps will move permanently to Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni in Japan on or before December.
These stealth jets will be joined by six more F-35B fighters in June 2017 with the arrival of the multipurpose amphibious assault ship USS Wasp (LHD-1). Since 2011, this ship has been testing the F-35B, the version built specifically for the Marines.
The F-35B is a short takeoff and vertical landing (STOVL) variant of the jet. It can also take-off and land vertically like a helicopter.
"I can't wait to get the airplane out to the Pacific," said Lt. General Jon Davis, Deputy Commandant for Aviation, Headquarters Marine Corps.
"It's tailor-made for that part of the world with its fifth generation capability and its expeditionary capabilities to land on a small ship or strip, and flow back and forth between those."
Gen. Davis said the Marines' F-35s are ready for combat now if needed. He revealed the F-35s are doing a lot better in combat exercises than expected, achieving kill ratios of 24 to zero in mock aerial combats against other jets, and surviving every sort of simulated enemy attack.
"It is like watching a velociraptor going through. Everything in its path is killed," he said.
The Air Force plans to buy 1,763 F-35A CTOL jets and will operate the largest F-35 fleet in the world.
General Herbert "Hawk" Carlisle, commander of Air Combat Command, said work to upgrade the F-35 will continue in areas such as software, making the displays more intuitive and boosting the ability to share information between aircraft.