Air Force Commander: The F-35 Is 'Kind of Like the iPhone'

Task and Purpose

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What does that mean? 

If it's an expensive next-generation weapon system, chances are a U.S. military official will at some point compare it to the iPhone.

In a wide-ranging interview with the Northwest Florida Daily News, new 53rd Wing commander Col. Ryan Messer offered his assessment of how the Pentagon's sprawling operational testing wing evaluates new aircraft and weapons systems before they head downrange — an assessment that included an easy-to-digest comparison between the beleaguered F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and the most recognizable smartphone on the planet.

One of the neat things is that the F-35 is kind of like the iPhone. It's a piece of hardware, but what makes it amazing are the apps, or that software, that goes into it," Messer said when asked about F-35 testing. "Because it's a very software-centric aircraft, as we discover things, we're able to produce new mission data files that update the software, and we can evolve it very quickly."

If that analogy sounds familiar, it should: U.S. Army Col. Elliott Caggins used an eerily similar analogy in an interview with Task & Purpose on the Next Generation Squad Weapon that Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center (ARDEC) sees as the key to sparking a "revolution in small arms."

"Imagine that Steve Jobs and his engineers were trying to convert the iPod Touch to the first 3G iPhone," said Army Col. Elliott Caggins, project manager for soldier weapons. "There were a thousand technologies they could have put in the first iPhone but they were looking to mature the platform before they could actually go onto the system."