The head of Air Combat Command is eager to show the world what the F-35 Lightning II can do against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.
Gen. Hawk Carlisle said last week that he is looking to deploy the aircraft to the Middle East in an “August to December” window.
“The minute I declare initial operational capability, if the combatant commander called me up and said, ’We need F-35s,’ I would send them,” Gen. Carlisle told reporters on Capitol Hill, Air Force Times reported Sunday. “We’re not quite ready yet, but things are going very well in the program.”
Defense experts have called the aircraft the most expensive in the world. The often-delayed project has come with a price tag of nearly $400 billion dollars.
“As soon as I get F-35s operational, I’d like to do it with the F-35 as well to demonstrate that I can move those airplanes anywhere that I need to as rapidly as I can to support combatant commanders’ needs, whether it’s in a peace time training environment, messaging to a potential adversary, or, if we ever had to, in case of conflict,” the general continued.
Using the aircraft in the Middle East would also demonstrate to lawmakers how it would deter “high-end capable threats” such as China and Russia. The general said F-35s will be a “key component against […] Pacific players.”
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The U.S. has trained more than 200 pilots and 2,000 maintainers for the F-35 since 2010. The program has completed 75 percent of its Test Program milestones, and pilots have logged more than 40,000 flight hours.
“After suffering years of unacceptable cost growth and schedule delays, the program appears to have started to stabilize,” Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, said at a March, 18, 2015, committee hearing, Bloomberg reported at the time.
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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