I HAD BEEN ASSURED IT WAS A TERRIBLE FIGHTER: F-35 Scores Impressive 15:1 Kill Ratio at Red Flag War Games.

Running from January 23 to February 10, this year’s Red Flag involves more threats to pilots than ever before, including surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), radar jamming equipment, and an increased number of red air, or mock enemy aircraft. Against the ramped-up threats, the F-35A only lost one aircraft for every 15 aggressors killed, according to Aviation Week.

The F-35 Lightning II’s advanced avionics software was the star of the show, as multiple F-35s successfully compiled data into a detailed layout of the battlefield with each individual threat pinpointed. The stealthy aircraft could then slip into weak spots in the defensive layout and take out SAM targets, opening up the space for follow-on forces of legacy fighters. Even when the F-35s ran out of munitions, F-22 and fourth-generation fighter pilots wanted the aircraft to remain in the combat zone, soaking up data and porting target info to the older fighters.

And the next batch of Air Force F-35As should come in at under $100 million per copy, thanks to Lockheed’s continuing production and volume efficiency improvements. That price is down 60% since the initial low-rate production run, and each new batch has come in at a lower flyaway cost than the preceding one.

The wisdom of forcing nearly-identical airframes into VTOL service (Marine F-35B) and aircraft carrier service (Navy F-35C) can and should still be debated. But the F-35A seems, at long last, to be performing to Air Force spec.

There’s some icing on this cake, too. We’ll build a couple thousand of our second fifth-generation jet, while the Russians and Chinese struggle to put up just one or two stealth fighter squadrons of dubious quality.