Summary
Lockheed Martin UK’s chief, Paul Livingston, defended the F-35 stealth jet program after Elon Musk called it obsolete due to advances in unmanned drones.
Livingston emphasized the F-35’s unmatched capabilities, including stealth, battlefield data-sharing, and cost-efficiency by replacing multiple aircraft types.
While Musk labeled the program overly expensive and poorly designed, Livingston argued drones alone can’t match the F-35’s capabilities or defend against threats like China’s J20 jets.
Despite criticism over cost and reliability, the F-35 remains integral to NATO defenses, with widespread adoption across 19 nations, including the UK.
The Air Force just selected to use pilots in their NGAD fighter. Drones are not capable of standing up to humans yet. Especially in an electronic warfare situation where maintaining a communications link is not possible due to jamming. So the drone has to rely on on board tech for decision making. It would certainly be different if a super computer AI could control it over the communications link but that’s not where we are.
Edit to Add - The Air Force has more F-35As than they do all types of F-15, and about a 1:2 ratio of F-35 to F16. The F-35C had been slower to roll out but 100 have been delivered to the Navy and Marine Corps and the Corps is already using them in Yemen.
Also, as a former infantryman I love the A-10. But it’s time is done. The AF did it dirty and tried to cancel it a hundred times but it still did it’s job. But the F-35 is everything we asked for in a replacement except for grass stains on the fuselage. It carries a similar load, has a good loiter time, and benefits from more advanced precision technology so danger close is slightly more survivable.