Test Pilot Admits the F-35 Can’t Dogfight

[Valin]

War Is Boring:

New stealth fighter is dead meat in an air battle

DAVID AXE

6/29/15

 

A test pilot has some very, very bad news about the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The pricey new stealth jet can’t turn or climb fast enough to hit an enemy plane during a dogfight or to dodge the enemy’s own gunfire, the pilot reported following a day of mock air battles back in January. “The F-35 was at a distinct energy disadvantage,” the unnamed pilot wrote in a scathing five-page brief that War Is Boring has obtained. The brief is unclassified but is labeled “for official use only.”

 

The test pilot’s report is the latest evidence of fundamental problems with the design of the F-35 — which, at a total program cost of more than a trillion dollars, is history’s most expensive weapon. The U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps — not to mention the air forces and navies of more than a dozen U.S. allies — are counting on the Lockheed Martin-made JSF to replace many if not most of their current fighter jets.

 

And that means that, within a few decades, American and allied aviators will fly into battle in an inferior fighter — one that could get them killed … and cost the United States control of the air.

 

(Snip)

 

And to add insult to injury, the JSF flier discovered he couldn’t even comfortably move his head inside the radar-evading jet’s cramped cockpit. “The helmet was too large for the space inside the canopy to adequately see behind the aircraft.” That allowed the F-16 to sneak up on him.

 

In the end, the F-35 — the only new fighter jet that America and most of its allies are developing — is demonstrably inferior in a dogfight with the F-16, which the U.S. Air Force first acquired in the late 1970s. The test pilot explained that he has also flown 1980s-vintage F-15E fighter-bombers and found the F-35 to be “substantially inferior” to the older plane when it comes to managing energy in a close battle.

 

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But It Looks So Cool!

 

[Valin]

[clearvision]

It is all a giant plot to get the Chinese to steal and copy it and spend trillions building them. Meanwhile can't afford to build enough of them anyway so we use our superior older technology.

[Valin]

It is all a giant plot to get the Chinese to steal and copy it and spend trillions building them.

 

 

I like it!

 

The DOD has a long and storied history of building really crappy fighters. Maybe all these critics are wrong about the F-35, but when a guy like Pierre Sprey comes out and says this is a POS, ya might want to look into it.

[SrWoodchuck]

@Valin & @clearvision

 

Maybe the answer is to have the White House establish some, "No Dog-Fighting Zones?" It has worked so well here in the Fire-Away, Kill-Us-All Gun Free Zones.....

....then again....if they beefed up our "Cloaking System" we might have the advantage of surprise?

 

Or.....redesign the F-35 to look like it's flying backwards....to fool them into thinking they're on our "6" when...in reality....they're staring right at our "12."

[Valin]

When is the F-35 Not a Dogfighter?
Joseph Trevithick

July 3 2015

 

(Snip)

 

“The challenge, chivalry and thrill of ‘guns-only’ dogfighting is clearly of a bygone era,” Air Force Lt. Col. Pete Zuppas, then in charge of the 35th Operations Group in Japan, wrote in an official 2007 op-ed.

 

(Snip)

 

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And How Many Times Have We Heard This In The Post WWII Era?

 

[clearvision]

Just like those silly wart hogs are of no use.

[Valin]

Aussies to Be First to Dump F-35 Program........

July 102015

 

(Snip)

 

Australia has reportedly dropped plans to procure the F-35B, owing to concerns over the costs required to complete modifications to the Australian Navy’s two Canberra-class Landing Helicopter Docks (LHDs) which would have deployed the aircraft. The Australian government is expected to officially present this decision in a white paper scheduled for August. Australia’s commitment to the Joint Strike Fighter program has been historically unclear, with the purchase of F/A-18F Block II Super Hornets in May 2007 as an interim measure relieving the urgency to commit to the F-35.

 

(Snip)

 

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I've heard that Canada is getting a little...concerned about the JSF program.

[clearvision]

With the world so much more at peace because of the worldly capabilities of our leader, this program is clearly not needed anyway.

[SrWoodchuck]

With the world so much more at peace because of the worldly capabilities of our leader, this program is clearly not needed anyway.

 

@clearvision

 

Why antogonize America, when we're already turning socialist communist?

 

Give Oblunder another year & we'll be able to sign a defense pact with Russia & China......

[Valin]

Ten Signs The F-35 Fighter Program Is Becoming A Smashing Success

Loren Thompson

 

Summer is the silly season for defense coverage in the nation’s capital. With much of official Washington gone, journalists have to work harder to find anything worth reporting. When they uncover an item that sounds like it might be newsy, they get as much mileage out of it as they can.

 

One approach is to take the latest glitch (real or imagined) in the Pentagon’s biggest weapon program and use it as a pretext for revisiting past issues — even though most of those issues have long since been resolved. The F-35 fighter is an easy target because its budget dwarfs funding for other programs, and the plane thus is a lightning rod for every conspiracy theorist’s fears about the machinations of the military-industrial complex. Few of the reporters on the defense beat realize that all of the legacy fighters sustaining America’s global air power today were subjected to the same sort of withering scrutiny during their own development.

 

I have an emotional attachment to the F-35 because I have worked with many of the companies that build it, including prime contractor Lockheed Martin, for much of my adult life (the program was awarded to Lockheed on October 26, 2001 — the day I turned 50). So when I see a widely-read pundit describe the plane as a “laughingstock,” as I did last week, I resent it. Are there really people out there that believe three presidents, three military services, and eight allies would pour a hundred billion dollars into a fighter that doesn’t work? Apparently there are.

 

(Snip)

 

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In reading the comments, Loren has not come anywhere near making the sale.

[Valin]

[Valin]

More troubling results from the new F-35 Lightning

Jazz Shaw

August 15, 2015

 

Last month we talked about some early flight test reports which hinted that the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter might be in trouble after years of development and hundreds of billions of dollars of funding. At that time the military was evaluating the jet in early tests against our own previous generation fighters and the results were mixed at best. Now that the aircraft has been at least initially approved, additional analysis is coming in. One such study is broken down by Martin Matishak at the Fiscal Times and, rather than stacking up the Lightning against our own Tomcats and other models, they match it up against our enemies. The results are once again less than encouraging.

 

 

The study by the National Security Network states the jet, the most expensive weapons system in U.S. history, will not only be outmaneuvered and outgunned by Russian and Chinese aircraft but will also be limited in range and its stealth capabilities will be easily overcome.

 

“The F-35 will find itself outmaneuvered, outgunned, out of range, and visible to enemy sensors,” the report states. “Going forward, full investment in the F-35 would be to place a bad trillion-dollar bet on the future of airpower based on flawed assumptions and an underperforming aircraft.”…

 

The NSS study compared all three F-35 variants to foreign fighters — Russia’s MiG-29 and Su-27 — and found it came up short in a variety of key areas, including acceleration, combat radius and payload. Such deficiencies would seriously hamper the U.S. jet in a dogfight.

 

Reading through the details there are more concerns than simple formulas breaking down weight, acceleration and turn ratios. The Lightning will be more reliant on in air refueling than other fighters and our opponents have improved capabilities to disrupt such operations. Also, the range issue looks particularly problematic if trouble arises in the far western Pacific theater. This is a part of the world drawing a lot of attention these days, particularly when you consider China’s activities in the region. Concerns about North Korea go without saying.

 

(Snip)

[clearvision]

Not sure why any of this matters... in the next big war the enemy will just cut off FaceBook and Twitter and demand surrender before it is restored... 30 minutes later we will have complied with their demands.

[Valin]

Not sure why any of this matters... in the next big war the enemy will just cut off FaceBook and Twitter and demand surrender before it is restored... 30 minutes later we will have complied with their demands.

 

You're close. Cyber attacks will be a major part of any upcoming war.

[Valin]

Kind of..Sort of Defense, of the F-35

 

America's F-35 vs. Russia or China's Best Fighters: Who Wins?

Dave Majumdar

September 9, 2015

 

Recently, there has been much debate about how well or how poorly Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) would fair against other fighters—particularly against high-end Russian and Chinese aircraft.

 

It’s a debate that won’t be settled until the F-35 and J-20, J-31, PAK-FA or Su-35 meet in combat for the first time—and there are numerous other factors involved besides the aircraft themselves. It’s also largely a moot point. The Pentagon will likely end up buying thousands of F-35s, so like it or not, we are stuck with the “Lightning II” for good or ill.

 

The F-35’s detractors point to the fact that the stealthy single-engine jet didn’t fair very well against a relatively elderly two-seat Block 40 F-16D that was carrying two external fuel 370-gallon fuel tanks. The F-35A, which is the most agile of the three versions of the jet, was decisively shown to be less nimble than the older aircraft. But for most people who have tracking this program, that’s not particularly unexpected.

 

Meanwhile, proponents of the F-35—primarily Lockheed Martin and the JSF program office (JPO)—tried to dismiss the results—aggressively calling out the War is Boring outlet by name. The company and the Pentagon claimed that the tests were not truly representative because the F-35 test article involved in the trial versus the F-16 was not equipped with a full set of avionics, didn’t have its stealth coatings, and did not use the jet’s helmet-mounted display and, moreover, was not equipped to simulate high off-boresight missiles like the AIM-9X Sidewinder. Besides, the F-35 was designed to fight from long-range—the JPO and Lockheed claimed.

 

Both sides of the debate are correct—but neither side is telling the whole story. As a good friend on the Hill recently told me: “In political communications, facts are an interesting aside, but are completely irrelevant. What we do here is spin.”

 

(Spin)

[Valin]

The Air Force wants airmen to say nice things about the troubled F-35
Blake Stilwell
September 23, 2015

Taking a page from the 2006 self-help book The Secret, the United States Air Force believes saying good things about the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter will make them come true. In an eight-page For Official Use Only (FOUO) memo to its public affairs offices, the Air Force gives detailed instructions on how to say only nice things about the troubled weapons system.

The estimated price tag of the 14-year-old Joint Strike Fighter program now tops $1.5 trillion. The Air Force, a service that has trouble keeping track of the cost of its new weapons systems, is pushing the fighter as a weapon designed for the “entire battle space.” The problems with the fighter are mounting, well beyond the battle space.


(Snip)....If that wasn’t enough, the Air Force and Lockheed only just recently figured out what kept causing their engines to http://www.airforcetimes.com/story/military/2015/06/05/air-force-investigation-june-2014-f35-fire/28535269/ on takeoff. Finally, the Air Force is taking a lot of flak (see what I did there?) from Congress and a community of military members who support the A-10 Thunderbolt II (aka the Warthog). In an effort to put billions toward the F-35, the Air Force is trying to forcefully retire the A-10’s close air support mission in favor of the new stealth fighter, even though the F-35’s gun won’t fire until 2019.

The Air Force Public Affairs Agency’s communications theme is “Lethal, Survivable, and Adaptive.” Lethal is a strange choice for an airframe whose weapons won’t be operational for another four years. Survivable is good to know if you’re piloting a plane whose engine is known to ignite. Adaptive is good for cost sharing with Coalition partners, because all of this stuff is really expensive.



For The Record, This is What Is Known As A BAD THING! From Thing Point On Nothing Good Is Going To Happen

[Valin]

Oh Crap Alert!

F-35 software problems
Bill Gertz
Wednesday, March 30, 2016

The U.S. militarys frontline F-35 fighter jet continues to face problems with key software and related issues that are delaying operational deployment, according to the Pentagons senior weapons tester.

J. Michael Glimore, director of operational test and evaluation within the Office of the Secretary of Defense, told a House hearing last week that the F-35 which is being built in three different versions for the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps is at a critical time.

There are shortfalls in electronic warfare, electronic attack, shortfalls in the performance of distributed aperture system and other issues that are classified, Mr. Gilmore said March 23. With regard to mission assistance, stealth aircraft are not visible to achieve success against the modern stressing mobile threats. Were relying on our $400 million investment in F-35 to provide mission systems [that] must work in some reasonable sense of that word.

 

(Snip)

[Valin]

Here's What the US and Its Allies Can Do With Their New F-35s
Ryan Faith
May 17, 2016
This story is part two of a three-part series on the innovations, and the problems, of the F-35, the newest warplane entering service in the United States and with several allied nations. Part one is published here.

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From The Comments

 

Jon in MD 22

Vice news must have been purchased by Lockheed Martin, that's the only explanation for such a gloss over of such an grossly over budget, overdue weapons system as the F35

[Valin]

OTOH

[Valin]

 

[SDwaters]

An observation and an anecdote:

The observation (made several years ago by someone more experienced than me).  A great deal of the cost for the F-35 went into it's "stealth" package.  For the air to air mission, the return on investment for this cost is iffy.  Stealth doesn't pay as much dividend in the day time.  After all, we don't have cloaking devices yet (at least that the public has heard of).  Most of our likely adversaries don't come out to play at night, so you have a great capability that you don't much need.

The anecdote (from a USMC "lessons learned" report).  The F-35 refueling point is on the opposite side from other tactical jets.  This complicates the traffic flow through the "hot" refueling pits at a mixed use base.  Pretty basic stuff, but it shows a lack of thought by the designers as to the operational environment.