"The F-35's single Pratt & Whitey F135 engine – while immensely powerful, producing about 43,000 lbs of thrust – also runs extremely hot," defense analyst Dave Majumdar wrote for the National Interest. "The Russians – who build excellent infrared sensors – could use the F-35's thermal signature to develop a weapons quality track to engage the stealthy new jet."
Other object-detection systems are apparently in the making.
"The Russians, especially, have been investing in long-wave networked radars operating in the UHF and VHF-bands for over two decades in their efforts to counter American stealth technology," the analyst detailed.
Earlier this week, Deputy Commandant for Aviation at the US Marine Corps, Lt. Gen. Jon Davis, described the F-35 as a "state-of-the-art, game-changing, war-winning" aviation platform in a testimony to the US House Armed Services Committee.
Davis also compared the single-seat, single-engine, all-weather stealth multirole fighter to a powerful dinosaur.
"The F-35's – twenty-four to zero kill ratio – killed all the targets," he said. "It was like Jurassic Park, watching a velociraptor – kills everything, does really well. We can't get that airplane fast enough into the fleet."
