dailynewsnblog
The United States Armed Forces have recently been taking delivery of Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II stealth fighters without their radar. The new AN/APG-85 radar faced production delays. Despite the absence of such a major system, deliveries have continued with ballasts in place instead, according to the Aviation Geek Club. This is primarily to avoid a massive production backlog and to maintain its strategic advantage against global threats.
The military is prioritizing the replacement of aging legacy fleets to bolster deterrence against near-peer adversaries like Russia and China. To incentivize performance, the Pentagon has been withholding a portion of the payment until the aircraft reach full combat capability. The question remains: are these fifth-generation fighter jets more of a liability than an asset as they enter service without one of their core components?
Fighters With Clipped Wings
The F-35 serves as a stealthy node in a massive cloud network during a contemporary battle. The F-35’s computers combine information from all of the other ships, satellites, and ground stations in the fleet to create a single, cohesive reality even in the absence of its own radar. If a networked wingman uses their own radar to paint a target, an F-35 without radar may nevertheless fire missiles against it.
Waiting and starting the entire manufacturing process from scratch after the radar is ready is more difficult than plugging it into a completed, flying stealth jet later. Therefore, to avoid slowing down the expansion of this global network, deliveries continued. At the same time, the F-35’s passive sensor package and networked architecture make it a powerful and valuable tool, even if the lack of an onboard radar restricts autonomous air-to-air search. The aircraft maintains situational awareness using other advanced technologies in its radar-less mode.
The F-35 can also ‘see’ without emitting any signal, in contrast to conventional fighters that mainly rely on active radar, which sends out signals that adversaries can detect. High-resolution, long-range infrared search and track (IRST) is provided by the Electro-Optical Targeting System (EOTS), a sensor mounted on the fuselage. Without ever turning on a radar, it enables pilots to locate and follow targets in the air and on the ground based on their heat signatures.
The Distributed Aperture System (DAS) also wields six infrared cameras around the jet to offer a 360-degree spherical vision. This technology detects approaching missiles and planes from any angle and projects the picture straight onto the pilot’s Helmet-Mounted Display System (HMDS), allowing them to see through the cockpit’s floor and walls in a ‘God’s Eye View.’
The Most Exquisite Jet
The F-35 is predicted to have cost more than two trillion dollars by the end of the twenty-first century, making it the most expensive defense project ever. However, that number accounts for decades of research and development that went into the first aircraft to roll off the line, as well as the enormous maintenance expenditures that around 3,000 stealth fighters are estimated to require over the duration of their service life.
After tallying the full year’s run, Lockheed Martin has announced that 2025 was the most productive year on record for the F-35 program. The global manufacturing effort successfully delivered 191 airframes before the new year. Other fighter jets made in America and partner nations like the F-15EX Eagle II, Eurofighter Typhoon, or even Dassault Rafale posted far lower numbers for the year. Similarly, the delivery rate of adversary fighters by rivals such as the Russian Su-34 or Chinese J-20 was paltry by comparison.
The average cost of the F-35A, the standard land-based F-35 fighter jet, begins at $80 million. In comparison, the F-22 Raptor was produced in much lower numbers than the F-35, sub-200 total, which ballooned its initial purchase price to over $150 million per plane. Since then, the lifetime cost of the world’s first fifth-gen stealth fighter has been estimated to total as much as $350 million for each F-22.
Another good price comparison can be found in the fourth-gen Dassault Rafale that serves the French Armed Forces, which Defense Express estimates costs $131 million per plane. Then there’s the fourth-gen-plus Eurofighter Typhoon, which comes in at around $117 million per fighter, according to Defense Media. That means the more capable F-35 is 30-40% less expensive than the fighters of the previous generation that are still in production.
Why Might Canada’s F-35 Order Have The US Worried?
The threat to the Lightning II.
Clearing The Backlog
A year-long pause in deliveries due to software issues discovered during the Technology Refresh 3 (TR-3) meant Lockheed Martin had a backlog of approximately 72 to 93 aircraft in 2024. Lockheed Martin describes production as being five times higher than that of any other Western-bloc fighter in current production. In 2025, Lockheed Martin delivered a record 191 aircraft. Continuing deliveries prevents a massive logjam at the factory that would take years to resolve.
By keeping the assembly lines in Fort Worth, Italy, and Japan moving at a steady pace, the program maintains its supply chain and specialized workforce, which are harder to restart than they are to keep running. Many new jets are being delivered with a truncated version of the TR-3 software. While these aircraft are not yet fully combat-capable, they allow pilots to begin essential training and flight operations while final software patches are developed.
New pilots need hundreds of hours to master the handling, logistics, and non-radar systems of the F-35. Having the airframes in hand allows ground crews to practice maintaining the stealth coatings, engines, and hydraulic systems peculiar to the newest TR-3/Block 4 versions before the radars even arrive.
By accepting these jets now, the US avoids a 2027 scenario where it has the radars but no aircraft to put them in. Instead, it will have a massive, trained fleet ready to be activated with a simple hardware swap. It is faster to retrofit a radar into an existing, flying jet than it is to build a whole aircraft from scratch once the radar is ready. Large numbers of stealth airframes deployed to regions like the Indo-Pacific serve as a deterrent. To an adversary, 50 stealth jets on a tarmac are a significant threat, regardless of whether 10 of them are currently in a passive-only sensor configuration.
What Is The TR-3 Upgrade To The F-35?
TR-3 will increase the F-35’s computer processing power and enable the jet to see further and become significantly more powerful.
The Culmination Of Eras
To understand why the F-35 remains a superior asset even without its own active radar, it helps to look at it not just as an airplane, but as a flying supercomputer that evolved from the revolutionary roles held by the F-4 Phantom and the F-16 Fighting Falcon. The F-35, referred to as the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), was developed based on the F-16 and the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II, the world’s most mass-produced supersonic fighter jet.
The F-35 is designed as a quarterback for the battlefield. Through the Multifunction Advanced Data Link (MADL), a radar-less jet can receive a complete tactical picture from other nearby F-35s or AWACS (Early Warning) aircraft. The jet’s Sensor Fusion computer combines data from its own IR sensors with radar data sent by wingmen into a single, seamless display for the pilot.
The F-4 proved that a jet could be more than just a gun platform; it was a multirole sensor carrier. However, it was blind without its own radar and required a second crew member (the WSO) to manage the data. The F-16 introduced Link-16, allowing it to see what other planes saw. It was the first node, but the pilot still had to mentally piece together data from different screens. The F-35 takes the F-16’s connectivity and adds Sensor Fusion. It doesn’t just show data; it interprets it.
F-35 Production Is Outpacing All Other Allied Fighter Jets Combined
The reign of the Lightning II.
Outpacing The Competition
The global fleet now includes 12 nations and almost 1,300 aircraft in service. The F-35’s technology and interoperability were intended to bring NATO and other international partners together. There were a number of major milestones in 2025 for the F-35 program beyond the record-setting number of deliveries. Most notably, the F-35 was used to defend Allied airspace for the first time when Polish pilots shot down Russian drones.
Finland received its first delivery in 2025 as well, and the first Belgian F-35 touched down at its new home following the completion of training in the United States. Norway was able to fulfill its total backlog and take delivery of its last aircraft. Italy increased its total order by 25 this year, and Denmark also added 16 aircraft to their total fleet.
The global fleet of Joint Strike Fighters, as the F-35 is also known, has not only surpassed the total of every other fifth-generation fighter ever built in the world, but it has not yet achieved 50% of the total order backlog. The F-35’s worldwide supply chain and large production volumes to maintain low costs per unit are key factors in its success.
Adding up the combined total of LM F-22 Raptors, Sukhoi Su-57 Felons, Chengdu J-20 Mighty Dragons, and Shanyang J-35 stealth fighters would still give a 100 short of the current F-35 fleet. Although with less than half of the total delivered, some allies are beginning to reconsider their orders due to the instability of President Donald Trump. Spain canceled its unfulfilled order at the end of 2025, and while Canada has agreed to fulfill the contract for some of its 88 total order, the fate of the remaining 72 is undecided.
