At Jodhpur, six F-35As climbed into the desert sky, flew beside Indian fighters and delivered the most closely watched images of Exercise Tarang Shakti. Yet the distance between seeing America’s stealth fighter and accessing its technology remained carefully guarded. Air Chief Marshal A. P. Singh said Washington had made no formal offer to India and joked that American personnel did not let their Indian counterparts near the aircraft. a light-hearted remark carrying a serious procurement question.
The F-35 is not one aircraft but three versions of a common combat system. The F-35A is the conventional-runway model operated by the US Air Force and most foreign customers. It is rated to 9g, carries an internal 25 mm cannon and has a published combat radius exceeding 590 nautical miles.
The F-35B uses a shaft-driven lift system for short take-offs and vertical landings. It can operate from amphibious ships and short or austere bases, but the machinery occupies space that could otherwise hold fuel; its published combat radius is more than 450 nautical miles.
The F-35C has larger folding wings, strengthened landing gear and equipment for catapult launches and arrested carrier landings. Its greater internal fuel capacity provides a published combat radius of more than 600 nautical miles, but it cannot use small-deck ships like the F-35B.
All three share broadly common avionics. Their defining advantage is the attempt to combine low observability with an electronically scanned radar, Distributed Aperture System, Electro-Optical Targeting System, electronic-warfare sensors and a helmet-mounted display. The aircraft processes these inputs into a fused tactical picture and can distribute information to compatible forces.
That does not make the F-35 invisible. Stealth reduces detection and tracking opportunities, its effectiveness changes with radar frequency, viewing angle, weapons carriage, tactics and the opponent’s network. Nor is the aircraft merely a bomber, it was designed for strike, air defence, electronic sensing and intelligence functions. Its Mach 1.6 maximum speed is respectable, but outright speed and turning performance are not the organising principles of its design.
Calling it the 'world’s best fighter' therefore misses the operational question. The F-22 is a more specialised American air-superiority design. China’s larger J-20 is generally associated with long-range counter-air missions, while Russia emphasises manoeuvrability and weapons flexibility in the Su-57. Their radar signatures, electronic-warfare performance and wartime availability remain substantially classified, making universal rankings unreliable.
The F-35’s stronger claim is that it is the most mature and widely distributed Western fifth-generation multirole system. Its scale creates common training, weapons, upgrades and logistics across numerous allied air forces. But that network brings dependence as well as interoperability.
Even the Pentagon has struggled to obtain sufficient technical data for some repairs and maintenance training. The US Government Accountability Office found that proprietary information and contractor control constrained government maintainers, while the fleet’s mission-capable rate stood at approximately 55 percent in March 2023.
The decision would be larger than F-35 versus Su-57. Russia has offered local Su-57 production and technology transfer, although such promises would require detailed verification in a binding agreement. India, meanwhile, is developing the AMCA to gain domestic competence in stealth design, integration and future upgrades.
An F-35 acquisition could deliver an earlier stealth capability, but New Delhi would need firm answers about mission-data files, Indian weapons, software baselines, repair rights, spare parts and upgrade authority. The real test is not whether the fighter wins an isolated duel. It is whether India can operate it effectively with its pilots, tankers, airborne-warning aircraft, satellites, weapons, runways and communications-and how much control it retains when that entire system is needed in war.