It's not really debunked. F-35 is not really suitable for combat. Fighter jets are now mostly obsolete, but F-35 is just especially bad. The stealth features

It's not really debunked. F-35 is not really suitable for combat. Fighter jets are now mostly obsolete, but F-35 is just especially bad. The stealth features of it dictate much of it's design, but they destroy it's usefulness as a fighter-bomber. Which means that it will never be suitable for a replacement for the A-10. It vulnerable to IR tracking weapons, which it's stealth features do not address well. IR guided weapons have traditionally been the stuff that shoots down American combat aircaft. In addition to this the F-35 cross section is not large enough for it's stealth technology to deal with VHF wavelength radar. B-2 bomber can deal with that stuff, but F-35 cannot. This means that American stealth fighters are easy to identify on radar... point a VHF radar at them and get a response and then point a XHF radar at them and get almost nothing. This means that for their stealth to be useful they have to do things like shadow civilian airliners or cargo planes to do any sort of infiltration. The stealth is also a trade off between 'over the horizon' radar guided weapons and being sneaky. You cannot turn on your radar and detect other aircraft and expect to not be noticed by their radar. Which means that you have to depend on other aircraft or ground stations to coordinate, which means that if you want to use stealth and detect other military aircraft you are going to have to operate in airspace already 'owned' by you. I expect that F-35 will never be allowed to operate in combat because of these issues and others except in areas were you are only dealing with very technologically limited opponents.