[Defense Commentary] The Missile Recently Equipped on the F-35

[Monthly Defense Times Editor-in-Chief An Seung-beom] Recently, an Air Force F-35A stealth fighter made an emergency landing at Seosan Air Base, drawing attention. The Air Force is increasing flight hours to fully operate the F-35A stealth fighter. Since late 2021, it has begun air-to-air weapons training and continued until January 4, when the emergency landing incident occurred. The latest AIM-9X Block 2 short-range air-to-air missile was introduced alongside the F-35A stealth fighter, and training for actual combat use has been conducted for the first time since November 2021.

It is not common for the F-35A stealth fighter to conduct training flights with external weapons attached. The principle of operating the short-range air-to-air missile AIM-9X Block 2 externally is as follows.

The F-35A stealth fighter uses the AN/AAQ-37 sensor located under the forward fuselage for all-direction long-range air-to-air tracking. Two or more F-35A stealth fighters integrate and fuse tracking data from the AN/AAQ-37 sensor scan areas via an SHF band digital interface. It maintains a silent state without using the AESA radar’s air-to-air mode and engages in beyond visual range (BVR) combat by utilizing other F-35s. Above all, it is a stealth fighter that "sees first and shoots first."

Because of this, the F-35A is rarely deployed in close-range combat. The radar cross-section significantly increases when carrying short-range air-to-air missiles like the AIM-9X Super Sidewinder or ASRAAM on wing pylons along with missile mounts.

A formation of F-35As is primarily composed of aircraft equipped internally with only BVR mid-to-long-range air-to-air weapons. These are operated first, and then F-35As carrying AIM-9X short-range missiles on wing pylons are deployed to handle surviving enemy fighters.

Of course, the F-35A is also a top-tier fighter in close combat. It leverages the AN/AAQ-37 sensor’s all-direction target tracking, which is implemented through the Helmet Mounted Display System (HMDS) with Helmet Vehicle Interface (HVI) and the electro-optical Distributed Aperture System (EODAS) via a fiber-optic digital interface to create a Virtual Reality (VR) environment for the pilot.

This allows continuous tracking even if an enemy fighter with a high turn rate deviates significantly from the longitudinal axis. By integrating this with the AIM-9X Block 2 short-range air-to-air missile, although the missile’s actual maximum turn rate does not reach 30 degrees per second, the F-35A’s maximum turn rate is known to be slightly higher than the old F-16A’s maximum turn rate of 24 degrees per second. A turn rate of 30° per second is among the highest for current fighters.

Once the accident investigation is complete and flights resume, full-scale training to operate other weapons is expected to proceed. Our Air Force is now entering a phase of verifying the capabilities of fifth-generation fighters and preparing for actual combat.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.