Test pilot report on F-35 vs F-16 dogfight

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Not really surprised. F-16 (and F-15 and F-18) to FLY, no trade-offs for low radar detectability. Whenever you try to design a plane with two disparate goals, you are going to have to compromise. Since CURRENTLY most air to air battles are beyond visual range, if your radar detectability is low you detect the other aircraft and launch your missiles before the enemy even knows you are there. So in THAT scenario, assuming your missiles are good, the F-35 wins. Once the other aircraft sees you (and if he/she can keep an eye on you) all your stealth capabilities are worthless

IOW, if you get into a dogfight with a non-stealth decent aircraft, you are probably SOL.

The real question is, how good is your stealth capability? Technology may have a hard time keeping stealthability beyond detectability.

https://www.navytimes.com/story/military/tech/2015/02/09/greenert-questions-stealth-future/22949703/

Got any opinions, Hornet?
 
Complete and utter nonsense. The F35 program hasn't been cleared for it's full flight envelope yet. Stealth and thrust vectoring alone would do in any F16. If you can't see it you can't shoot it.

I agree 100%, I'm not buying much of that article at all.
 
Not really surprised. F-16 (and F-15 and F-18) to FLY, no trade-offs for low radar detectability. Whenever you try to design a plane with two disparate goals, you are going to have to compromise. Since CURRENTLY most air to air battles are beyond visual range, if your radar detectability is low you detect the other aircraft and launch your missiles before the enemy even knows you are there. So in THAT scenario, assuming your missiles are good, the F-35 wins. Once the other aircraft sees you (and if he/she can keep an eye on you) all your stealth capabilities are worthless

IOW, if you get into a dogfight with a non-stealth decent aircraft, you are probably SOL.

The real question is, how good is your stealth capability? Technology may have a hard time keeping stealthability beyond detectability.

https://www.navytimes.com/story/military/tech/2015/02/09/greenert-questions-stealth-future/22949703/

Got any opinions, Hornet?

First off, the Navy should have proceeded with the F-14D. The Tomcat was already one of the best fighter/interceptor/bombers the Navy had, the F-14D was a huge improvement. Unfortunately Cheney had to flex his hatred towards Grumman. Anyone that knows will tell you that no version of the Hornet had the capabilities of the F-14D.
 
Since CURRENTLY most air to air battles are beyond visual range, if your radar detectability is low you detect the other aircraft and launch your missiles before the enemy even knows you are there.
Yep, currently. But I recall that the same idea was the reason they didn't put a gun in the F-4. Later, after actual combat, they changed their mind. At least they have a gun in the F-35:

https://www.gd-ots.com/armament_systems/ags_F-35.html
 
It's a boondoggle and vastly overpriced for what it's supposed to do. We are getting soaked by Military wants far exceeding the technology to produce. Too many roles are expected and the plane just plain doesn't measure up. We need to stop the bleeding now, the F35 can't do as well as ANY of the planes it's to meant replace. The "need" for constant "upgraded" aircraft is artificial. They STILL can't come up with a better bomber than a B52....
 
It's a boondoggle and vastly overpriced for what it's supposed to do. We are getting soaked by Military wants far exceeding the technology to produce. Too many roles are expected and the plane just plain doesn't measure up. We need to stop the bleeding now, the F35 can't do as well as ANY of the planes it's to meant replace. The "need" for constant "upgraded" aircraft is artificial. They STILL can't come up with a better bomber than a B52....

I agree. Every time they try and replace a single roll aircraft with a multi roll aircraft you have to compromise. Remember the F-111. But then you got the F14 from that failure. I'm sure things will sort themselves out as soon as the next Republican gets elected.
 
It's a boondoggle and vastly overpriced for what it's supposed to do. We are getting soaked by Military wants far exceeding the technology to produce. Too many roles are expected and the plane just plain doesn't measure up. We need to stop the bleeding now, the F35 can't do as well as ANY of the planes it's to meant replace. The "need" for constant "upgraded" aircraft is artificial. They STILL can't come up with a better bomber than a B52....

Agreed!!!
 
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"Complete and utter nonsense. The F35 program hasn't been cleared for it's full flight envelope yet. Stealth and thrust vectoring alone would do in any F16. If you can't see it you can't shoot it."

The above was posted by BayouRat. This is my response.

I do not know what the F-35 has been cleared for, but I am pretty sure that the vector thrust of the F-35 is only used for VSTOL. Like the Harrier, and like the Harrier it might be able to use it in a dog fight but with limited capabilities. As far as stealth, it is the old game of technology, haw long will it be stealthy, 5 years-10 years? Also what about rules of engagement? When you have to visually ID the aircraft you are going to shoot down. Then stealth is dramatically decreased or gone totally if the enemy gets a Tally Ho.
I know that dogfighting has been almost nonexistent in the last 35 years (because of our superiority {USA}) but buy not producing more F-22's, we are setting ourselves up for trouble.
I would delve into why we are producing the F-35, but I do not want to get into politics.
 
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Complete and utter nonsense. The F35 program hasn't been cleared for it's full flight envelope yet. Stealth and thrust vectoring alone would do in any F16. If you can't see it you can't shoot it.

The F-35B (Marines) is the only version that has thrust vectoring and it is not used in normal flight. it is only used only for STOVL operations when taking off and landing. the F-35A (Air Force) and C (Navy) have no thrust vectoring at all.
 
As far as stealth, it is the old game of technology, haw long will it be stealthy, 5 years-10 years? Also what about rules of engagement? When you have to visually ID the aircraft you are going to shoot down. Then stealth is dramatically decreased or gone totally if the enemy gets a Tally Ho.
That is exactly my beef about relying on one primary feature that can potentially be defeated by a technological surprise. That's one of the reasons why we originally created our nuclear forces triad as insurance against that. The F-35 is going to need to suffice for how many decades? If and when it no longer has a stealth advantage, it's back to what it basically is, a phenomenally expensive multi-role jack of all trades but master of none.
 
Wow, so glad the UK flogged the US Marines all our Harriers and bought into this POS :(
 
I've never really understood the logic of requiring "multi-role" platforms when the trade-off mean that something isn't going to be as good. There is a good reason that "fighter-bombers" that we used in WW2 went away (for the most part). They weren't good fighters but neither were they really good bombers. They had a niche use, but outside that niche, dedicated fighters and bombers were superior.

I understand that it is supposed to be more cost effective if everyone can buy the same platform but if you end up with a product that is inferior to what you had before, is really cost effective? What do you save by losing the engagement?
 
Wow, so glad the UK flogged the US Marines all our Harriers and bought into this POS :(
And if this pans out, you may have also helped to defeat what you're buying. :wink:

Stealth detection system disappears from screens (20 Jun 2001)

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/06/20/stealth_detection_system_disappears/

A British research and development company, which claims to have invented a method to detect stealth aircraft, has clammed up on details about its technology.

Roke Manor Research has decided not to speak to the press after UK national the Daily Telegraph ran an article on the detection system. Roke claims the Telegraph misquoted the company's head of projects. [The truth or arse covering? - you decide, Ed]

The system uses a traditional mobile phone network to detect stealth aircraft as they pass silently through the ether. Although the aircraft have advanced coatings which absorb conventional radar signals, they apparently still reflect back enough radiation emitted from mobile phone masts to be detected by special ground receivers.

The receivers are linked to a central computer which - in sync with a GPS satellite - is able to position the aircraft to within 10 metres.

According to the Telegraph Peter Lloyd, head of projects at the laboratory's sensor department, said: "I cannot comment in detail because it is a classified matter, but let's say the US military is very interested."

Lloyd today denied ever having said that the project was classified, or that the US military has expressed an interest. He added that the article was a "gross distortion of the truth", and that he was under instructions not to talk to the press. Details on the project have been removed from Roke Manor Research's website.

Stealth-detecting bistatic radar is back in the news (Dec 2007)
By John Keller

https://www.militaryaerospace.com/b...cting-bistatic-radar-is-back-in-the-news.html

Detection of the B-2 Stealth Bomber And a Brief History on “Stealth”
The Tech - MIT's oldest and largest newspaper
30 Nov 2001

https://tech.mit.edu/V121/N63/Stealth.63f.html

The Roke Manor system

The stealth-detecting system announced over the summer was developed at Roke Manor Research, a British defense firm based in Romsey, Hampshire. It does not try to detect emissions from careless stealth aircraft, a half-hearted and easily-countered move.

Instead, it attacks the stealth system itself by detecting the radar waves that do reflect off it.

John Hansman, a professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT, explains, “Some stealth aircraft, like the F-117, are specifically designed to have a low radar cross section to monostatic, or conventional, radars. They are not stealthy to some bi-static configurations.”

Conventional monostatic radar places the transmitter and receiver in the same location, making it simple to locate a plane when spotted. Bi-static, or multi-static radar, would position the receiver at a different position from the transmitter. This makes it more difficult to compute the location of the aircraft.

However, since stealth aircraft do reflect some radar, but away from the transmitter, bi-static radar could conceivably receive the reflection and detect the stealth aircraft.

The problem then becomes one of scale and coordination.The stealth aircraft will be visible only if ideal alignment exists so that the transmitter bounces a signal off the stealth aircraft to the receiver. Stealth aircraft, however, are vulnerable from a very small subset of possible combinations of angles.

The Roke Manor system solves that problem with computing power and some creative thinking. Building a radar every few miles to solve the first problem is prohibitively expensive. However, radar is simply an application of radio, and in today’s wireless age, radio waves surround us. In particular, in industrialized nations, cell phone towers can be found every few miles, sometimes every hundred feet. Telephone companies also know exactly where the towers are located, and have telephone lines hooked up to them, facilitating communication.

In effect, the Roke Manor researchers have envisioned the use of cell phone towers as a extremely dense network of radar transmitters and receivers, interconnected via communications links. The sheer number of cell phone towers makes detection much easier than with solitary radar sites.

“A lot of stealth technology deals with redirecting radar waves,” said Greg Duckworth, a Principal Scientist at BBN working on underwater acoustics in an area very much analogous to radar.” It’s very effective against monostatic radars. However, if you have bistatic radars, in particular a very large number of sources, so that you excite the target from a wide range of angles, and you have a multiplicity of receivers in many locations, you essentially will get around the stealth target’s redirection capabilities. It is highly likely that an incident wave from a cell tower will be redirected towards one or more receivers.”

Having gotten around the stealth aircraft’s redirection capabilities, the system then puts together all the data from the cell phone towers. Until recently, this was not possible. However, increased computational power and advanced signal processing techniques have made it possible to sort through all the signals and form a coherent radar picture. Ironically, the further development of the same computing technology that originally made stealth possible has now made it possible to detect stealth aircraft.

Implications of Roke Manor

Given a cell phone network, massively parallel computers, and the Roke Manor software, how much can one determine about a plane? Quite a bit, as it turns out.

“If you can get a radar return, you can get all kinds of information from the return signal if you can process it sufficiently,” Hansman said. “For example, if you an look at the Doppler shift of the returned signal, you can get aircraft velocity. If you are sensitive enough, you can see frequency effects, such as engine rotation or structural vibration. If you have several receivers or different imaging angles, you can begin to reconstruct an image of the target.”

These data further reduce the effectiveness of stealth technology. While stealth has always returned a small signal, even to monostatic radars, that signal is so small that it is usually filtered out either by the radar scope or by the operator. However, with velocity and shape information, as well as software specifically designed to detect the inconsistencies that give away a stealth airplane, it becomes considerably easier to separate planes from birds in the sky.

Ernie Rockwood, a researcher for Sensis Corporation, a company that specializes in air traffic and air defense, said that he was “not surprised” by this development. “Some of my co-workers and I worked on novel bistatic battlefield radar techniques to improve survivability. We also submitted a proposal to Rome Labs for an operational concept using multistatic techniques.”

Defense researchers and experts in the defense industry also seem to agree that the technology is sound. Some believe this to be a natural development in radar technology.

“Underwater, they’ve already gone to multistatic systems because the reflectively of targets is such that they don’t naturally bounce stuff back,” said Greg Duckworth. “Not because they tried to, as was the case with stealth technology, but because the physics makes them do that naturally.”

Duckworth also drew an analogy between cell phone towers and television transmissions.

“Televisions have improved quite a bit, and comb filters have gotten better,” said Duckworth. “On older TV sets, though, when an airplane goes over your house, a reflective wave from the aircraft ends up interfering at your antenna, and you see lines and artifacts on your screen. To the extent that a stealth aircraft does not absorb the wave, the remnants of it still interact with the airplane and result in detectable interference patterns.”

The television analogy is particularly apt, since Lockheed has been working on a project that operates on the same principles as Roke Manor’s anti-stealth system. In this project, called Silent Sentry, FM radio stations and VHF television broadcasts are used to provide the dense network of radio waves that interacts with stealth aircraft. While there are fewer FM and VHF transmission towers than cell phone towers, each individual station transmits much more powerfully.The smaller number of stations would also reduce the computational requirements of the system.

Consequences of anti-stealth

How far-reaching are the implication of this anti-stealth technology? As with all military technologies, it depends on the particular application.

Owen Cote, Associate Director and Principal Research Scientist of MIT’s Security Studies Program, explained, “Even if this system works, it wouldn’t be useful if you couldn’t shoot the aircraft down. You’d have to find some way of guiding a missile very close to the target before an infrared or illuminating radar could achieve a lock on the aircraft.”

“This is not very mobile technology,” he continued. “Your cell phone towers are in fixed locations. While it would be close to impossible to destroy them all, they are susceptible to jamming just like conventional radar. Stealth might very well be a technology with a very short half life. However, against foes such as Serbia or Iraq whose technology is not yet competitive with ours, I see stealth as having a much longer life. As a proof of concept, this bistatic technology sounds right. The actual implementation, though, is another matter.”

Still, Dr. Cote saw some long-term effects of a successful system. “No offensive advantage lasts,” he said. “Often there is a relatively cheap defense counter to match new offensive technology. We may find ourselves moving further away from manned delivery platforms and focusing more on cruise missiles, tactical ballistic missiles, and short range missiles with incredible accuracy.”

The technology is widely acknowledged to be feasible, and Roke Manor claims to have working prototypes. However, bistatic radar is neither a miracle nor a disaster that renders worthless decades of stealth research. It is yet another battle in the war between armaments and armor.

---------

But don't feel too bad as the Chinese are working on it, too:

How Effective Is China's New Anti-Stealth Radar System, Really? (6 Oct 2014)

https://thediplomat.com/2014/10/how-effective-is-chinas-new-anti-stealth-radar-system-really/

China's Anti-Stealth Radar Comes to Fruition (22 Nov, 2014)

https://archive.defensenews.com/art...016/China-s-Anti-Stealth-Radar-Comes-Fruition
 
Wow, so glad the UK flogged the US Marines all our Harriers and bought into this POS :(
And about the need to even have a VTOL capability in the F-35 which has led to a lot of complexity in the program:

Marine questions value of STOVL jets, Harrier and F-35B (27 Jan 2012)

https://blogs.star-telegram.com/sky...ns-value-of-stovl-jets-harrier-and-f-35b.html

Occasionally someone in the active duty military has the courage to go off the script and say what they really think about their service's dogma and pet projects.

Here's a piece by a Marine aviator questioning the value and purpose of the Marine Corps love and commitment to the STOVL fighter-attack airplane, the Harrier and now the costly and complex F-35B.

Other analysts and experts have said it before, probably some Marines too, but in his blog "Boats Against the Current," Peter J. Munson, an active duty officer and KC-130 commander, lays out much of the case against the F-35B. Marine generals love to argue it gives them the capability to go fight close to the front lines, without air bases, but never bother to add how many truckloads of fuel and supplies and men and defense weaponry will have to be hauled over land to that forward base, and at what cost and vulnerability to enemy attack.

Munson writes:

The Harrier has surely been a large part of Marine aviation since 9/11, but its STOVL characteristics were rarely, if ever, critical to the conduct of operations. If anything, the capability was a liability when it came to the requirement for long on-station times, multiple ordnance options, and tedious scanning of compounds and cities with targeting pods in support of troops on the ground.

While Harriers have conducted some forward rearming and refueling at shorter strips, these were more driven by the Harrier's limitations and the desire to validate its expeditionary capability than a value added to the fight. That is, while a Harrier was rearming and refueling, a Hornet would be overhead, sensor still on target, refueling from a KC-130, more weapons still on the wing.

So, when the program hits a rough spot again, which I think it will, and when the budget adjusters come knocking, the Marine Corps needs to be honest about how much STOVL capability it really needs to maintain its close air support capability aboard amphibious shipping, how soon unmanned aerial systems can fill that gap, and what the best option is for the rest of our close air support needs.

One can't help but suspect that when former Defense Secretary Bob Gates put the F-35B on probation last January that he had some of these same arguments in mind but didn't want to fight a war with the Marines in his final months in office. Secretary Panetta last week swooped in and freed the "B," winning friends in USMC HQ and Lockheed Martin, among othe places.

The extraordinary complexity and demands of the F-35B have undoubtedly hampered the whole F-35 problem, creating technical problems and sucking up limited (in Pentagon terms) development dollars and engineering resources. The need to redesign the whole aircraft (all three models) to take out weight was largely an effort to salvage any combat payload for the B-model. Now, with the airframes of early planes showing cracks and wear and tear early in their lives one has to wonder how much of those and future problems will be due to weight reduction for the F-35B.
 
Not really surprised. F-16 (and F-15 and F-18) to FLY, no trade-offs for low radar detectability. Whenever you try to design a plane with two disparate goals, you are going to have to compromise. Since CURRENTLY most air to air battles are beyond visual range, if your radar detectability is low you detect the other aircraft and launch your missiles before the enemy even knows you are there. So in THAT scenario, assuming your missiles are good, the F-35 wins. Once the other aircraft sees you (and if he/she can keep an eye on you) all your stealth capabilities are worthless

IOW, if you get into a dogfight with a non-stealth decent aircraft, you are probably SOL.

The real question is, how good is your stealth capability? Technology may have a hard time keeping stealthability beyond detectability.

https://www.navytimes.com/story/military/tech/2015/02/09/greenert-questions-stealth-future/22949703/

Got any opinions, Hornet?
Hey BABAR, Yea I got an opinion ,sort of. It's going to piss of just about everybody whether your pro or con. I'll do it in several posts , since I responded earlier in a lengthy post and--as usual with this forum--- it was lost in space. First let's talk about stealth for a minute. Stealth, in and of itself is part of a total package that also includes tactics, environment,mission profile and so on---so it does not stand alone. Any plane can be detected, stealth just gives you a chance to get a little closer to your enemy--you are not invisible !! In the cluttered environment of the battle area a stealthy craft is at it's best! Detection is always possible but a dedicated system to pick up stealthy aircraft would be astronomically expensive to field and maintain in a non combat zone let alone a combat area. Add to that it's likely to be stationary--that makes it's elements targets-- cut the head off the snake and it's dead----OK, time out --another post coming in a minute or so---just plying it safe !!!---H
 
OK, Let's talk about the F-35 as a single airframe doing multiple jobs.. Bottom line--it's not--The various versions only share about 40 to 60% commonality depending on which ones you compare. And if you think this program is expensive , Just think how expensive three or four separate aircraft would be along with their separate support systems. Those programs would be subject to the same kind of cuts the F-22 went through---How did that work out for us? The economies come from the F-35's coming off the same assembly line for the most part--some countries will produce their own. As you can see, there is no way we could afford several different aircraft coming off different assembly lines at the same time. This would have also left the overseas market wide open with production likely going to a European vendor.---OK, time out again .
 
Vectored thrust?? The F-35B has vectored thrust for STOVL use only!!! It can not ViFF like a Harrier. While we're on that, the big argument is that the F-35 was designed around the lift system of the B model. There is some truth to that--BUT--when you remove that system it gives you room for other stuff--fuel for one--that space does not go unused. The actual shape of the aircraft was not dictated by the lift fan technology--It was modified and fitted to the F-35 airframe! again lets go on hold for a minute.
 
Before I get into the Dog fight argument let me address a couple other comments made. The B-52 is a bomb truck, nothing more nothing less--in uncontested airspace it can drop dumb bombs till the sun comes up--and that serves a valuable purpose---otherwise it's a stand off weapon that can carry a massive payload. It's not a penetrator ! The B-1 is in my opinion the finest bomber we have in the inventory--Fast Cargo can address this better than me though-- . F-14 D was a God send the gov. didn't want, it didn't fit their bill. It was a generation + ahead of the F-14A and finally had the engine to meet the airframe needs. In the end we got the A+ . The D , sometimes called the bombcat , was effectively the Navy's answer to the F-15E . We went from "anytime baby" to "now baby" It might have been a missed opportunity but the F-18 began to fill it's roll at a lower cost although I would argue that it was the finest interceptor in any service ever!! Well, what about the A-10? The F-35 can not do that job as well as the A-10. There is no comparison , that said no other aircraft can either although the F-16 and F-18 do a fine job and can get to target quicker--with less loiter time though----more in a minute
 
What I'm not clear on is... who exactly do we plan of fighting that makes these capabilities needed compared to older aircraft?
 
All right, let's get into this dog fight thing. In the first place, this is really , really old news. That said, the F-35 used was one of the older ones and did not have the current updates added to the flight system. In lay mens terms it was a tame aircraft !! This dog fight could have been done on paper--I'm sure it was-- with the same results. SO WHY DO IT??? Well there's testing to be done--one point of interest--the F-35 will not depart flight under normal circumstances. So maybe it was a test to see if a bunch of mixed maneuvers would cause that? I don't know. What I do know is the F-35 in it's current state , has a much wider flight envelope than the one tested. I do know that the one tested had a limited AOA, roll rate, and G load as compared to the current birds. Who knows why they did this knowing it would be bad publicity---must be a plan somewhere?---- more in a minute
 
Threads like this are amazing to me. Amazing because of the utter lack of facts and real knowledge, but armchair general types will cast judgement and portray their baseless opinions as facts. Good thing most of us do not fly rockets with the same methodology. Hornet Driver is the only one here with a bigger perspective. Winston, you're fabulous at digging up facts, but lose the context along the way. And, almost none of you have any idea about how aerial warfare is truly employed these days.

Tactics, techniques and procedures? nah, you don't need a working knowledge of that to pass judgement. By all means, do not trust those who've spent an entire career figuring those things out and put nothing less than their lives on the line if they are wrong. Because you are a tax payer, you obviously know better.

I've tried to share the perspective of an active duty USAF officer deeply involved in the F-35 since 2009 before and it has not gone well, criticized by others that apparently know more than me on the subject. Seeing as I am responsible for eight of these amazing aircraft, soon to be nine, and I am deeply involved in the operational testing that will lead to USMC and USAF IOC, you'd think that would carry some water. Not so much.

But, I am just a part of the Military Industrial Complex that seeks to fatten it's coffers with unneeded and flawed equipment. Right. That opinion is why the USAF is the smallest it has ever been since 1947, with the oldest fleet in it's history and is more rapidly losing ground to potential adversaries than at any other time in it's history. Those are facts that I could walk around my corner of the USAF and show you, not an opinion.

If you all want the unclassified, ground truth, let me know. And, yes, there is no full envelope testing going on right now, so any comparisons are flawed at the get go.

Flame on.
 
More on this dog fight thing and then I'll answer Zeroignite's question. One thing to remember about dog fights--you don't want to be there !!! Setting the Israeli's aside because of their unique situation. There really are only three reasons to get in a dog fight---bad information, bad tactics, and bad Rules of Engagement, the latter being the most common. If your in a fight it's up to you to stay in it--you can egress if you choose---Most of us have fang marks on our masks and horn holes through our helmets. The F-35 is a -hmmm--Finesse Fighter , it will be able to pick and choose when to fight--and the best fight won is the one not fought sometimes. It's a strike aircraft! A simple look at the canopy tells you that--no bubble--even with the wiz-kid helmet, The MK-1 eyeball rules supreme. Also , the F-35 does not fight alone-- an F-35 a couple miles away may take out your enemy for you--such is the technology these days. For the guy that said dog fighting does not occur---go ask the Israeli's --to my knowledge the F-15 is undefeated---world wide !
 
Everytime this comes up, someone invariably says "the F-35 doesn't need to be a great dogfighter" then someone responds "what about the F-4..."

The F-4 thing is a huge red herring. Yes, the F-4s lack of gun and general lack of agility was a liability in Vietnam. But this was an issue mostly because of 2 factors: 1) restrictive rules of engagement that required visual ID before firing (forcing a dogfight) and 2) the F-4s primary weapon system, the AIM-7 Sparrow, was unreliable, required the F-4 to stay pointed at the enemy until impact, and even in the best case scenario was more designed for blasting big bombers than agile MiGs, again forcing close-in engagement with guns and Sidewinders. Current radar, C3, and missile systems are far more capable, and BVR engagements are more likely (and more likely to be lethal).

The F-35 is way over budget and has a lot of teething problems. But when it works it's remarkably capable at what it's primarily meant to be: a stealthy (if necessary) strike aircraft with solid air-to-air self-defense capability, with advanced ability in the things that really matter in modern air combat: integration with other sensors and weapon platforms. It's not the world's greatest one-on-one dogfighter, but it doesn't need (or intend) to be that.
 
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Name a single complex weapons system in the last 40+ years that WAS NOT over budget or time, or did not having so called teething problems. The F-15 and F-16 were deemed "so flawed as to be unsuitable" in the late 1970s. The Eagle's 104-0 kill ratio and the wildly successful Viper history (and production numbers) proved otherwise. You could name some of the most successful fighter aircraft ever, such as the Mustang, that had massive developmental problems. For most planes, that's a process you have to work through to work past.

As someone involved in the program, I am actually amazed at how darned good the airplane is already...and I am talking Block 1B to 3I aircraft running very immature software. Many at Nellis painfully remember the maturation for another 5th Gen platform (please no Raptor bashing...I guarantee you don't know what you are talking about) and this newest one is getting seasoned at a very rapid rate in comparison. All indications are that it will be the plane we need for the coming decades, and will be much more survivable in a contested, degraded environment than anything else flying (except the Raptor).
 
Name a single complex weapons system in the last 40+ years that WAS NOT over budget or time, or did not having so called teething problems.

I agree - in case you didn't notice, I'm on your side here :p

But what do I know, I'm just an aerospace engineer at a (not Lockheed) member of the military-industrial complex. (That said, Lockheed shouldn't be let off the hook entirely - they are not exactly paragons of efficiency)
 
Thanks Viperfixr, I hope I don't tick you off but I just call it like I see it ! To answer Zeroignite---In the everyday, basic , let's go get the bad guys in the third world nations, or sand pit or mud bog,stealth plays a limited role. But it is still valuable. Everyone seems to forget that the F-35 does have hard points on the wings. This little girl can hang some spam if needed. The stealth qualities are only needed in a contested airspace. If the air space is contested and there is not enough F-22's or F-15's to gain air dominance, then the F-35 looks like a good option for a strike package--
 
A couple of closing thoughts. Everyone seems concerned that the F-35 will be the only girl at the dance. Completely untrue!! F-15C's and E's will be around till at least 2030. They are currently slated for upgrades , that among other things include AESA radar. The F-16's are not going to the dump. The older airframes will be retired or re purposed. There is still a ton of growth potential in the F-16. The Navy will end up with a mix of F-35C's and Super Hornets. Most likely , the Navy will not buy as many F-35's as originally planned--The Super Hornet also has a lot of growth potential left in it!! The Navy has a particular aversion to the F-35 with it's single engine layout. Historically you loose more single engine planes than twin engined ones( although that gap is narrowing ). Even the F-16 had teething problems at first and would occasionally be called" long darts". The Marines will have a mix of F-35B's and C's along with some Super Hornets. The last two can suppliment a carriers force. There is a lot of talk about taking the pilot out of the cockpit , I think that's farther off than most suspect. The Navy seems to be talking the helm with autonomous aircraft development. The next generation of aircraft is already on the drawing boards and I'm sure they will learn lessons from the program--It's had bad and good results.
 
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