Lockheed Martin, Air Force defend F-35 - Air Force News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Air Force Times

Lockheed Martin, Air Force defend F-35

Lockheed Martin and the Air Force have taken an unusual step to publicly defend their $300 billion fighter jet program from recent criticisms of the plane’s capabilities, including reports that it performed poorly in a simulated fight with a Russian aircraft.

Both the contractor and the service said Friday that the F-35, which is intended to replace a variety of older aircraft flown by the Air Force, Marines and Navy, has outperformed all existing fighters in air combat simulations.

Company and service officials also said recent reports in the Australian press that the plane had been soundly defeated in computerized simulations by a Russian Sukhoi were not true. The test, part of a Pacific Vision Wargame, did not include air-to-air combat, according to Maj. Gen. Charles Davis, head of the Air Force’s F-35 program.

The timing of such negative press reports comes at a “critical point” for the entire program with only a few months left before international partners begin to make final buying decisions, Davis told reporters on a conference call.

“It’s disappointing but not surprising that they come when they do,” said Davis, who suggested that some critics were attempting to advance an agenda.

Both Davis and Tom Burbage, Lockheed’s executive vice president of the F-35 program, also took issue with a Sept. 10 opinion piece published in Jane’s Defence Weekly that criticized the F-35’s capabilities and the Pentagon’s strategy for buying it. Among the claims made by Pierre Sprey, a former Pentagon official who helped design the F-16, and Winslow Wheeler, an analyst with the Center for Defense Information, were that the plane is overweight, can’t carry enough weaponry and is unable to adequately support ground troops.

The Air Force and Lockheed officials said the F-35 has the most powerful engine ever installed in a fighter, outperforms other jets and has undergone extensive testing to ensure that its capabilities are sound.