F-35 fighter jet plagued by poor visibility, Pentagon report warns

[jsr]

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/03/06/f35_fighter_jet_plagued_by_poor_visibility_pentagon_report_warns.html

F-35 fighter jet plagued by poor visibility, Pentagon report warns
Experienced fighter pilots say the F-35, billed as one replacement for Canada’s air force, has poor visibility, making it tough to spot enemies.

OTTAWA—The F-35 jet, eyed as Canada’s fighter of the future, may have a fatal flaw — a blind spot that prevents pilots from “checking their six” or easily watching for an enemy behind them, a new report says.

Experienced fighter pilots who have flown the high-tech aircraft say the design shortfall could cost future F-35 pilots their lives.

“Aft visibility will get the pilot gunned every time,” wrote one American pilot, who flew the fighter last fall at Florida’s Eglin Air Force Base.

“The head rest is too large and will impede aft visibility and survivability during surface and air engagements,” wrote another.

[denverbill]

1. I don't understand the visibility problem.

Not a whole lot of dog-fighting happens anymore. Aren't missiles fired long before a plane is in visual range? Don't they have onboard radar to see threats behind them?

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. They thought in the 1960s that air to air was a thing of the past

And over 'Nam they found they were wrong. Yup, the A-6, if I remember the right fighter, had no gun installed, no machine gun. Later on they put gun pods on them, after they found that yup, air to ar still happened and those pesky North Vietnamese had the bad taste to have missed that memo.

We even got a fighter ace out of that war, Randy Duke Cunningham, who you might remember as a very corrupt congressman. Small world, he was my BIL's CO...and there are stories from the navy days, that when life finally caught up to Randy my BIL was all but surprised. Good fighter pilot, no sense of personal morality.

Pilots train for it, since it happens.

And sensors are good for long distance but close in, pilots are still trained to rely on the best pair of sensors you've got, your own eyes. So yes, that could be a major issue, but would not be the first time designers ignore pilot input...see Vietnam war...and a fighter with no guns.

[Egalitarian Thug]

4. What's important to understand is that this program has cost us universal health care

(that's care, not insurance), or the best public education system on earth, or the end of homelessness, or any of another dozen things American citizens are denied so that our corporate welfare queens don't have to earn their own way.

[Initech]

2. Nothing a couple billion can't fix.