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F-35 Dogfight Criticisms laid to rest?

38K views 279 replies 53 participants last post by  Ankylus 
#1 ·
#19 ·
One one hand I agree with you. The F16 and F18 are still awesome aircraft and avionics are always upgradeable. They are battle proven and still better than what other hostile nations are operating. These platforms are a cheaper way to go.

On the other hand I think the U.S. still needs to be developing next generation aircraft. Although I think the F-35 program is a boondoggle. I don't know how in this day and age we can spend hundreds of billions on something like the F-35 and get a subpar operating aircraft.

I mean we don't light off nukes undergound anymore because we have computers so powerful that they can perfectly simulate a nuclear blast for planning and design purposes.
 
#5 ·
Within visual range, it's 90% pilot and 10% aircraft anyway. As master fighter pilots such as Yeager and Boyd have conclusively proven.

When the US acquired its' first Mig 15, it was mock-combat tested against our F-86. Yeager flew both planes, and regardless which plane he was in, he always came out on top. Even in the MIG, which had notorious instability problems, and usually couldn't recover from a spin.

BTW read the development history of the B-29. The airplane that prevented the invasion of Japan. Ir was still being debugged when the war ended.
 
#7 ·
When the US acquired its' first Mig 15, it was mock-combat tested against our F-86. Yeager flew both planes, and regardless which plane he was in, he always came out on top. Even in the MIG, which had notorious instability problems, and usually couldn't recover from a spin.
The MiG-15 - which traces its roots to the Focke-Wulf Ta183.
 
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#8 ·
All I know is that I wouldn't want to be in the cockpit with that big fan spinning behind my head. Last one-for-all solution was the F111, which resulted in the Navy paying for the F14 and the Air Force paying for the F15 all of which were obsolete in terms of fighting the hot version of the Cold War. Lockheed has a reputation for building expensive, complicated aircraft that are seldom mass produced.
The F104 was a space-age pig that we had to pay the Germans to fly. The YF12 was the mass produced strategic fighter version of the SR71, which was rendered obsolete by spy satellites before it was built.
If not for the C130 Lockheed would have gone out of business by the end of the Korean War.
The F35 was supposed to replace the F16 as our budget export fighter, but now it costs more than the F22.
 
#9 ·
All I know is that I wouldn't want to be in the cockpit with that big fan spinning behind my head. Last one-for-all solution was the F111, which resulted in the Navy paying for the F14, both of which were obsolete before they came on line.
Do I have to remind the assembled multitude again that only the Marine version has the fan? It gets the glamor photos, but it's actually a small minority of the planes that will be built.
 
#11 ·
Like a number of weapon programs, the F-35 was over sold. While it will do many things very well, it can not bust tanks with cannon fire like the A-10, it still does not meet the deep strike mission requirement of the Navy, and it is far more complicated to fly than the F-16.

I believe the Marine version will be an excellent replacement for the AV-8 Harrier.
The Navy version is better and far more survivalble than the F-18.
The F-35 is light years ahead of current strike aircraft used by our Allies.

I believe it is a good addition to our current mix of aircraft, but IMO the US still needs to develop a modern replacement of the A-10 Warthog.
 
#21 ·


I really think what needs to happen is that the U.S. Navy (The 2nd largest air force in the world), needs to have a new air dominance fighter program based on the engines and avionics of the F22, but with a purpose built airframe for carrier operations. The same plane can be purchased by the Airforce to bolster the only 187 remaining F-22 fighters.

The High-Low strategy of buying F-15's and lower cost F-16's was pretty good doctrine in the 1970's. In addition, the F-16 was a very popular plane for our allied partners to purchase from us.

Today, we have 10 Aircraft Carrier, all with limited deck space. The High-Low mix really doesn't make sense here like it does on a big Air Force base. You want the most capable planes in those precious spots. The "Low Cost" F-35 might be better than a Super Hornet, maybe not, but what is needed is a F-14 replacement for fleet defense and ground attack.

In addition, the U.S. Marine Corps likes to fly fixed wing planes off of their landing ships, since the advent of the Harrier aircraft. Really there is no need to do this, as Marine Squadrons frequently fly F-18's from real Carriers. Any real combat deployments are going to be in conjunction with a Carrier Battle Group. Besides the very few fixed wing aircraft simply can't provide adequate support to a real landing action, too few planes and no AEW capability.



The Marines and their budgets would be better served by a new (like the old) A-10 dedicated attack aircraft with high loiter times, large ordnance capacity and low maintenance requirements. Once airbases are obtained, the A-10, like the Marines KC-130's can provide additional sustainable support to Marines on the ground. Not every plane needs to be carrier capable.

When one considers training, spare parts and savings from unit production costs, the Navy and the Airforce would be better served by a Air Dominance/ Ground Support High-Low mix, with the new Navy aircraft in the Air Dominance Role and newly built A-10's taking the ground attack role.



The F-35 isn't going to be cancelled, but the buy amount can be reduced and the Airforce can use it to replace older F-16A fighters. Foreign orders would not be impacted by a reduced buy, as long as the price stayed the same. The conventional Air Force version is the best of the bunch.

The Navy and Marines, should simply skip this plane.

“‘Fast moving aircraft are not designed to support ground troops,’ said Army Sgt. First Class Frank Antenori. ‘As much as the Air Force and Navy would like to think that, fighter aircraft that travel at speeds can’t slow down to identify the targets.’ Antenori made this statement after witnessing a friendly fire incident, in which bombs dropped from one of USAFs fast movers killed 16 Kurds and injured 45. He also said that “With fast movers, I never had any success,”, and that senior decision makers often become so enamored with technology that they fail to see what troops on the ground really require. While A-10s never missed, F-18s needed two or three bombing runs to get them on target, he said.
 
#15 ·
^^ Nor is the F35 a "dog fighter" -- many of the military brass discussing the F35 have consistently explained that the Joint STRIKE Fighter was never designed to be the front line air combat platform ... specifically, "If you find yourself in a dogfight, you screwed up big time."..... The F35 is akin to the Red October SSBN- "designed to approach targets with stealth and destroy them with little or no warning" -- the F35 was designed to be able to flame the bad guys without them seeing you. If you have suddenly got into a close in dog fight, you screwed up.



Now as for ME, I think the F35 is a front program for money for something much more advanced, like on Stargate SG1. Space battle cruisers, son.
 
#22 ·
Mauser I like and agree with about all you posted and thank you for it.

I also think the Navy screwed up big time.

The Navy would have been way better in the short, medium, and long term if they had a fleet of F/A-22 Navy Raptors to replace the F-14s for Combat Air Patrol, Interceptor, and highest value Attack/bomber role, and F/A-18 "Super" Hornets (assuming there was a happy medium to be had in the 3-sided triangle of Costs, Capabilities, and Volume [lots of them to fill up squadrons] ) ... and F-35Bs for USMC Aviation on "Big Deck Amphibs".


The biggest problem the F-35 program has had is the fact that it tries to pretend there are "3 versions of the F-35" ... which is BS. The F-35A, F-35B, and F-35C are all different birds, totally.
 
#31 ·
Taken out of context. The SR71 was designed to replace the U2 with its primary mission being gathering intelligence about RUSSIAN and Warsaw Pact strategic bomber and missile capability, but Russian AA capabilities improved so quickly that it never fulfilled it's primary purpose; spy satellites supplanted it.
Remember that the primary limitation to all high-performance aircraft is the requirement that they provide life support and safety to those large bags of Jello that operate them. Get rid of the Jello and you get rid of many of the limitations. Missiles and spy satellites don't have the Jello.
 
#30 ·
Entertaining thread. I've been shooting video of these planes for years now and I can attest to their viability. Shot the first flight, first vertical landing, and spent two carrier duties shooting ops.
They can shoot ground targets - look up gun tests on youtube. They are expensive, but they have capabilities that are way beyond what is flying now.

Merica.

AA
 
#33 ·
181 rounds of 25 mm at 3000 rounds/min = just shy of 4 seconds of firing time. for the internal gun

The external gun pod (which impacts the stealth characteristics) has 220 rounds adding a second of trigger time.

About one sixth the capacity of the A-10 and a weaker round.

A-10 30 mm round


F-35 25 mm round.


 
#42 ·
When I was playing the “Korean Missile Crisis” scenario several months back I’d send up some Korean F-16s to draw their fighters out, then as soon as they were committed I’d start dumping dozens of AMRAAMs at the swarms of Nork fighters from well outside their detection range. Needless to say the DMZ was being littered with North Korean Migs.
 
#43 ·
Here's the Aviationist link I promised. Better late than never.

https://theaviationist.com/2016/03/...-jsf-pilot-first-hand-account/comment-page-1/

Reading it again reminded me of another aspect to the P-38 story. The P-38 is a large airplane, and nobody expected it to be much of a dogfighter. (It was built to be an interceptor, remember.) It wasn't until some aggressive jocks started scrapping with Spitfires that the technique of the high speed stall and the use of the Fowler flap demonstrated that this twin-engine monster could in fact out-turn the lightest and most (conventionally) maneuverable fighter the British had. Later on our guys learned how to out-turn the vaunted Zero, too.

------------------------

Part of the F-35 system is that a group of aircraft can be linked together (via satellite I guess?) with enough bandwidth that radar data from one is available to all. i.e. one plane lights up its' radar, and others still in stealth mode know where to sneak in for the kill.
 
#45 ·
The beauty of the F35 is the ability to synthesize inputs from many sources and build a wholistic picture of the battlespace. Imagine being able to see the engagement envelopes of the anti-air, pinpoint all US and allied aircraft, naval forces, pretty much all enemy air and even blue force ground. Imagine knowing the weapons loadout and status of every friendly air asset within 300 miles. Then other assets can be directed to engage. You don't HAVE to engage in a turning and burning dog fight because you saw those -27's coming from 200 miles since a flight of F15's picked them up on radar and the data link fed those into your system. Now since you KNOW there are some 22's up high that the 27's can't see visually or on radar, you can vector them in from behind. Oh, two got away... now they have to fight past the flight of F16's that were in the area on a CAS mission but still have their AIM9x's available. Your data link fed that info to the 16's for engagement. All of that while you were busy launching on a couple of ground targets to protect some Marines and you put an AMRAAM into a Bear.

That type of scenario is what the systems on the 35 are designed to make happen.
 
#49 ·
So, again...

The F-35 is not designed -- nor intended -- to be a front-line air-superiority platform nor is it going to have to fulfill that role. Originally, the plan was to make an entire fleet of F-22 Raptors (which are still the best AAW platforms on the planet) to handle air-superiority and interceptor/air interdiction roles, and the F-35 Joint STRIKE Fighter was designed to be the highest-technology , latest-generation Air-to-Ground platform.

The battle-plan was to have F-22s clearing the skies of enemy fighters and/or bombers while the F-35 comes in undetected to launch precision strikes on the ground, or launch stand-off weapons from long distance, with (as mentioned several times by other posters) other platforms capable of vectoring , retargeting, and terminal controlling of the weapons.

Obviously the F-22 program got truncated (which is a damn shame, because it's an amazing platform, other than that whole oxygen problem) and the F-35 has become so expensive .... and as a result, the F-35 is having to position itself as a be-all do-it-all air combat platform. Still, the F-35 is not , Not , NOT designed to be "dogfighting" front-line near-peer enemy aircraft. It's designed to kill them before they even know they're being targeted, or sneak in undetected to launch precision air-to-ground strikes, OR carry heavy payloads for ground strikes while being covered by F-22s or F-15/F-16s to do the dog-fighting for them.


Not really fair to be like, "Oh the F-35 isn't even as good as the F-16 at dogfighting!" when the F-16 was purpose-built , initially with the SOLE ROLE as a "dog-fighter" ... but in real life, the F-16 (or realistically, Flankers, MiGs, etc.) would never even find the F-35 to kill it , they'd get flamed up the tailpipe by a Slammer missile before they knew they were in trouble.
 
#50 ·
Yeah, thats nice and all. But there are worries already about radarguided missiles having problems locking onto enemy stealth planes, like the Chinese stealth planes. All the long range missiles are radar guided.

Plus the stealth fighters have a small number of missiles while being stealthy ( payload bay only ).

Also , active counter measures will soon ( within a decade ) make the transition to air planes.

I would not be surprised if guns make a comeback vs peer adversaries.
 
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