It Could Be Years Before Billion-Dollar War Toy F-35 Is Ready for Combat - The Daily Beast

It Could Be Years Before Billion-Dollar War Toy F-35 Is Ready for Combat

Don’t get too excited about the U.S. Air Force possibly declaring the long-delayed F-35 fighter jet ready for combat—if history is any guide, it won’t be sent into a fight for years.

The U.S. Air Force could declare its new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter stealth jet combat-ready as early as Monday.

The so-called initial operational capability announcement means the F-35—the Pentagon’s latest radar-evading warplane and the product of history’s most expensive weapons program—can, in theory, deploy overseas to bomb ISIS or deter Russia or China.

“We have achieved all our milestones,” Lt. Col. Steven Anderson, an officer with the Air Force’s Utah-based 388th Wing, set to be the flying branch’s first operational F-35 unit—told Air Force magazine, a trade publication.

It’s up to Gen. Hawk Carlisle—the head of Air Combat Command, which oversees most of the Air Force’s frontline fighter squadrons—to make the formal declaration. Many observers expect Carlisle to make the call no later than Wednesday.

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