The F-35, More Than Just a Fighter

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Critics have to stop thinking of the F-35 as merely the new fighter that replaces the worn-out 1980?s-vintage F-16, Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work said Wednesday. Speaking at an AFA Mitchell Institute event, Work said the F-35 is “not a fighter. It is a ‘BN-35,’ a Battle Network-35. It is a sensor computer node in the distributed campaign battle network that causes the decisions of the pilots to be so much better than [that of] the adversary and also provides enormous benefit to the battle network” by distributing vast amounts of information to the joint force.

Audio of this article is brought to you by the Air & Space Forces Association, honoring and supporting our Airmen, Guardians, and their families. Find out more at afa.org