F-35 Needs Modernized AETP [Adaptive Engine Transition Program] to Fight into 2080s

By Kris Osborn,  President, Center for Military Modernization

(Washington DC) The Air Force plans to fly its 5th-generation F-35 all the way into the 2070s and beyond, in large measure, by advancing an ambitious continuous modernization program that relies heavily upon computing, mission systems, sensing, and software upgrades.

F-35 Modernization Through the 2070s

Many have seen throughout the years that incremental software “drops” for the F-35 have ushered in paradigm-changing improvements such as a vastly expanded weapons envelope and guidance, and the new edition of interfaces to accommodate new weapons systems.

The Pentagon’s continuous modernization program for the F-35 was unveiled and articulated to Congress by the Joint Strike Fighter Program office many years ago, and it’s based upon the premise that the majority of breakthrough technologies in coming years are likely to be in areas of computing, sensing, weapons guidance, and mission systems.

These are all things that can be upgraded through software “drops” for the F-35, a process that has progressively become more continuous, timely, and ongoing instead of being restricted to pre-planned drops years apart. The concept is to integrate software upgrades at the speed of change to, as the Pentagon described it, “continuously” upgrade the F-35 rapidly in coming years.

Software upgrades can completely transform the attack functionality of the F-35, with the integration of new weapons such as Stormbreaker, an innovative air-fired, all-weather weapon able to track and destroy moving targets at ranges out to 40 miles. Stormbreaker, which has been integrated into the F-35 with software drops in recent years, operates with a tri-mode seeker, meaning it can track and destroy targets with infrared RF guidance, laser targeting, and all-weather millimeter wave sensing.

Software upgrades have enabled the air-to-air AIM-9X weapon to fire off-boresight and shift course in flight to destroy a target behind it or on the side.