"PENTAGON WORKING TO GIVE F-35 JSF NUCLEAR-STRIKE CAPABILITY"

Inside the Air Force - 4/24/2009

GENERAL: PENTAGON WORKING TO GIVE F-35 JSF NUCLEAR-STRIKE CAPABILITY

The Defense Department and a handful of allies have launched an effort
to ensure the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program is capable of
conducting the most devastating mission in modern warfare --
delivering a nuclear bomb.

A senior Pentagon official announced the initiative, which aims to
fulfill a long-standing requirement for the stealthy fighter, two days
after The Wall Street Journal reported that cyber spies had
successfully penetrated the $300 billion JSF program -- the most
expensive weapons program in history.

“We have a cooperative effort under way to move the F-35 into nuclear
capability,” Maj. Gen. Donald Alston, assistant Air Force chief of
staff for strategic deterrence and nuclear integration, said during an
April 22 speech to a group of military and civilian officials in
Arlington, VA. “All the right deliberate steps are under way.

“This involves the nations together who are involved in that program
to come together, but we’ve been working in the Pentagon -- let alone
inside the Air Force -- and with the allies,” the two-star continued.
“The right next deliberate steps are being made with that, and we’ll
hope to see that come to conclusion here in the near term.”

F-35 partners include a number of nuclear-capable NATO alliance
members and Israel, an undeclared nuclear power. Four non-nuclear NATO
countries -- Belgium, Germany, The Netherlands, Italy -- have a
nuclear strike mission.

Air Force B-2 and B-52 bombers and F-15E and F-16 fighters are the
only Air Force aircraft that can currently deploy nuclear weapons.
Aircraft that carry nuclear weapons require special circuity that is
different from the technology used in conventional weapons.

Pentagon officials declined to provide additional details about plans
to add nuclear-strike capability to the F-35, such as whether all
variants will be configured for the strategic mission.

"Nuclear capability has been an F-35 requirement since the program's
beginnings, but it is not a component of the current system
development and demonstration phase," a program official said in an
April 23 e-mail.

In December 2008, a task force led by former Defense and Energy
Secretary James Schlesinger reported that some allies “are already
pursuing an option for replacing their [dual-capable aircraft] fighter
forces by investing in the development of the F-35, which has an
operational requirement for delivery of nuclear weapons.”

The highly publicized report concluded that the Pentagon “must ensure
that the dual-capable F-35 remains on schedule” and that “further
delays would result in increasing levels of political and strategic
risk and reduced strategic options for both the United States and the
Alliance.”

The F-35 is designed to carry two large 2,000-pound Joint Direct
Attack Munitions. Some nuclear weapons weigh around 500 pounds and are
roughly the same size as a 500-pound JDAM.

The F-35 is still several years away from entering full-rate
production and only a handful of test jets currently exist. The Marine
Corps jets are not expected to reach their initial operational
capability until the beginning of next decade.

“Usually way before this stage of the program you’re beginning to hear
about that sort of thing,” Richard Aboulafia, a senior aviation
analyst at the Teal Group said in an April 22 interview.

Part of the certification would include the development of a mission
attack profile, according to Aboulafia.

“What is your plane expecting to do when it drops the bomb; there’s
all kinds of performance parameters,” he said.

Early-generation fighters were designed to launch and then pull
straight up in order to propel the bomb away from the plane, the
analyst noted.

“You’ve got to make the plane technically able to get away fast after
launching, so . . . there’s all sorts of calculations there,” he
said.

Placing nuclear weapons on the JSF would also have treaty
restrictions, which limit the number of nuclear capable aircraft the
United States can operate.

Air Force and Lockheed Martin officials referred all questions about
the JSF’s nuclear strike capabilities to the F-35 joint program office.