The F-35: Too Much Too Late?

The military tech junkies out there celebrated a huge milestone last month: the first carrier landing for Lockheed Martin’s (NYSE: LMT) long-awaited, much-anticipated F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF).

Not so much a plane as a platform for an entire family of combat aircraft, the F-35 has been one of the most controversial new designs to enter the American arsenal in decades.

It comes in three major variants: one for the Navy, one for the Air Force, and one for the Marines.

The Marine variation features a unique tilt-nozzle jet engine that allows the supersonic fighter to take off and land vertically — making it an ideal 21st century replacement for the legendary Harrier jump jet.

Not including the units destined to serve with the British Royal Air Force, the total orders for this program stand at 2,443 units — each costing between $85 million and $142 million.

The total cost of the program, which now has an anticipated life span of 55 years, is over $1 trillion.

Now, before I get into the specific issues that have been plaguing this airplane, let’s just take a look at that 55-year figure.

In all of aviation history, there have been only two airframes that have survived for anywhere near that long in service to their respective nations.

Is the F-35 Destined to be a Granddaddy?

The first was the Russian Tu-95 Bear bomber — a giant turboprop holdover from the early Cold War years that the Russians use these days for everything from surveillance to anti-submarine warfare to testing NATO’s air-defense responsiveness.

It was the plane that dropped the most destructive weapon ever made — the 57-megaton Tsar Bomba — over an Arctic test site in 1961.

It also boasts the most powerful propeller driving engines ever made, with a combined 60,000 horsepower.

The second is the iconic American B-52, which served over the skies of Vietnam and in every conflict, war, and “limited” bombing campaign undertaken since.

The Bear first entered service in 1952, and the B-52 came three years later. Aside from their general shape, the modern equivalents of both planes have undergone so many modifications and modernizations over the years that they would be scarcely recognizable to crews who flew the early versions.

Neither plane was ever intended to serve anywhere near as long as it has.

So for the DoD to be planning a 55-year life span for an airplane that has now been in development for almost 20 years and in flight testing for more than eight seems a bit too farsighted.

And this is only the beginning of the problem…

Design by Committee

In its quest to satisfy a wide spectrum of design requirements, Lockheed has come up with a plane that apparently can’t do any one task particularly well.

It’s not very maneuverable. It doesn’t climb very well. Its single engine is the most powerful ever fitted to a fighter aircraft, but there’s only one — which creates reliability issues, thrust-to-weight ratio insufficiency, not to mention wear and tear problems not associated with more average-performance power plants.

In short, the fighter pilots aren’t impressed — especially after decades of training and fighting in hot-rods like the F-16 or the legendary F-15, which many believe is still a match for the best competition out there.

Designers, of course, will argue that these days, the ability to dogfight, out-climb, out-turn, and out-run the enemy is not even a secondary concern.

Missile technology is rapidly outpacing fighter performance improvements, meaning that tomorrow’s combat scenarios will revolve around beyond-visual-range guided missile exchanges and not a whole lot more.

Yes, that tends to kill some of the glamour associated with flying a fighter plane, jockeying for position, trying to get that all-important lock on the enemy before he can do the same to you.

But it’s also a largely self-defeating argument for the proponents of this super-expensive piece of technology.

If the fighter of tomorrow is nothing more than a stealthy platform for delivering guided weapons to a theater of operations, what’s the point of having manned fighters at all?

The Biggest Drawback of Manned Aircraft: The Man

Manned aircraft have one major disadvantage to unmanned aircraft in that they require life-support for the pilot.

This not only takes up space and adds precious weight to the vehicle, but it also creates necessary performance limitations.

A human body, for example — even with the best training, physical fitness, and pressure suits — cannot tolerate more than nine times the force of gravity in high-speed turning before blacking out.

This creates a glass ceiling in the rate of turn a combat aircraft can sustain, meaning that when it’s time to dodge a missile, there is a clear disadvantage.

Modern missiles, by comparison — both surface-to-air and air-to-air — can easily accelerate and turn at G loads that are several times higher than that.

So the pilot becomes not just an expensive option but also one that limits the performance and effectiveness of the plane.

And yet we’re spending a trillion just to keep them flying.

Is this rational? Well, depending on the expert you ask — and which branch of the military they’re loyal to — the responses will vary.

However, one thing is clear: There is no way to tell just how far, and in which direction, unmanned air vehicle technology will go during the projected lifecycle of the F-35 family of fighter jets.

What we do know is that even today, the alternatives to manned combat aircraft are stacking up.

A New Generation of Killer Robots

You know about the Predators and the Global Hawks, which have been mainstays of America’s drone fleet for years — but those will look downright boring in comparison to the next generation of dedicated, purpose-built combat drones.

There is the RQ-180, for example, designed by Northrop Grumman (NYSE: NOC).

Its stealthy design was made to penetrate enemy airspace and rain down precision munitions while its pilot relaxes in an air-conditioned facility hundreds or thousands of miles away. This plane may be ready for limited operations as early as next year.

And Lockheed itself is currently working on an even more potent model. Dubbed the SR-72 in honor of the 1960s spy plane legend, the SR-71, this unmanned aircraft will fly at Mach 6 — twice as fast as its namesake (which itself is faster than a rifle bullet at the muzzle) — and at altitudes higher than all but the most advanced surface-to-air missiles.

A functional technology demonstrator for the SR-72 could be in the air as soon as 2018. It will outstrip the F-35 in every parameter, and it will do so before the 55-year life of the F-35 is even 10% over.

And if speed and performance isn’t your cup of tea, there’s an entire subspecies of micro-air vehicles currently in the works to address more immediate, more localized problems.

There is the Maveric concept, for example, which is the size and shape of a bird and able to fly at an altitude of five miles to spy for its special-forces operators.

Deployed from a six-inch tube and weighing just two and a half pounds, Maverics are cheap, hard to detect, and provide their users with a priceless advantage.

And they get even smaller, with models like the Wasp (developed jointly by AeroVironment (NASDAQ: AVAV) and DARPA).

Weighing less than a pound, the Wasp will put the power of a remote flying eye into the hands of foot soldiers. As with the Maveric, it’s cheap, reliable, easy to use, and mass-producible to satisfy demand fully.

And you can bet it won’t take another decade to get into service.

Now, having taken all that in, what do you think of the future for manned aircraft like the F-35?

Well, if rationality were the only guide, it would be clear. However, with so much money and so many man-hours already committed to the program, that seemingly simple conclusion is anything but.

That said, it is clear which industry the organic trend for miniaturization and optimization favors.

To your wealth,

Brian Hicks

Brian is a founding member and President of Angel Publishing and investment director for the income and dividend newsletter The Wealth Advisory. He writes about general investment strategies for Tech Investing Daily, Wealth Daily and Energy & Capital. Known as the “original bull on America,” Brian is also the author of the 2008 book, Profit from the Peak: The End of Oil and the Greatest Investment Event of the Century. In addition to writing about the economy, investments and politics, Brian is also a frequent guest on CNBC, Bloomberg, Fox and countless radio shows. For more on Brian, take a look at his editor’s page.