The new fifth-generation fighter is so stealthy, the Air Force has trouble tracking them during training exercises.
During a battle simulation, the Air Force team imitating adversaries could not properly track the F-35, the Air Force Times reported.
F-35 pilots were practicing how to evade anti-aircraft systems, but the land-based trackers couldn’t get a lock on the jets.
“If they never saw us, they couldn’t target us,” Lt. Col. George Watkins, the commander of the 34th Fighter Squadron at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, told Air Force Times.
Eventually, the F-35 pilots turned on their transponders — which are used so that the FAA can track the planes in U.S. airspace — so they could gain experience evading the anti-aircraft systems.(RELATED: Russia Brags It Can Track, Detect Stealth F-35 Fighter Jet)
“We basically told them where we were at and said, ‘Hey, try to shoot at us,’” Watkins said. Without the trackers, “most likely we would not have suffered a single loss from any SAM threats while we were training.”
With four planes, Watkins says the Air Force can “be everywhere and nowhere at the same time because we can cover so much ground with our sensors, so much ground and so much airspace. And the F-15s or F-16s, or whoever is simulating an adversary or red air threat, they have no idea where we’re at and they can’t see us and they can’t target us.”
Watkins also said that when F-35 pilots train, “it’s really an unfair fight for the guys who are simulating the adversaries.”
“We’ve been amazed by what we can do when we go up against fourth-gen adversaries in our training environment, in the air and on the ground,” Watkins said.
This is good news, considering one pilot’s assessment last year that the F-35 was at a severe disadvantage and wouldn’t survive in a dogfight with the F-22.
The Air Force is still testing it’s fifth-generation fighter jet, and expects to declare the first 12 planes combat-ready this fall.
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