F-35 at its best fails to beat a F-16 at its worst in a dogfight

[DetlefK]

http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/the-f-35-cant-beat-the-plane-its-replacing-in-a-dogfigh-1714712248

"The test pilot flying the F-35 makes it very clear that the new jet, even in its ideal configuration without any external stores, was no match against a Block-40 F-16C in a less-than-ideal configuration with a pair of under-wing fuel tanks:

Even with the limited F-16 target configuration, the F-35A remained at a distinct energy disadvantage for every engagement."

...

"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."



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

The only way the F-35 was able to beat the F-16 was a desperate maneuver that is too risky for anything else but a 1:1 engagement.

[lumberjack_jeff]

1. $148 million? What's its purpose?... Guess I answered my own question. n/t

[Uncle Joe]

2. How much does an F-35 cost?

Thanks for the thread, DetlefK

[HassleCat]

8. If you have to ask...

...you must not be a taxpayer. Seriously, they're projecting $1.5 trillion over the expected 30 year life of the program. Of course, we know it will be much more than that, and the plane will be obsolete in ten years, so I'm figuring $100 million per plane, minimum.

[Volaris]

16. The plane is obsolete NOW, if it got its ass kicked in a dogfight by an F-16.

[Kelvin Mace]

10. I have seen numbers from $150 million to $250 million a copy

I think the higher number is for the copies built so far, and they are supposed to get "cheaper" when production ramps up. The thing is I believe the F-16 runs $50 million a copy, so at best we could buy 3 F-16s for the price of a single F-35.

Massive waste of money.

[Octafish]

13. Depending on the model and extras...fly away for $232 to $337 million each...

How DOD’s $1.5 Trillion F-35 Broke the Air Force

...

“The cost of an F-35B grew from $232 million in 2014 to a bulging $251 million by 2015,” Wheeler wrote. “The cost of the Navy’s F35C grew from $273 million in 2014 to a wallet-busting $337 million by 2015.”

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2014/07/31/How-DOD-s-15-Trillion-F-35-Broke-Air-Force

PS: GREAT TO READ YOU, Uncle Joe!

[Uncle Joe]

14. Likewise, Octafish.

It's great to see you as well.

Peace to you.

[MineralMan]

3. I really wonder if aerial combat between two

fighter planes is really much of an issue these days. I don't know, but I doubt it, really. That kind of warfare seems to me to be obsolete.

[hobbit709]

5. That was said after every war after 1945.

[leveymg]

7. That's what they assumed at the beginning of the Vietnam War. Costly mistake.

They ended up putting cannons into the F-4 Phantom, a fighter designed in the mid-1950s without them because the Air Force and Navy assumed that missiles had made cannons obsolete.

Every US fighter since has had both. Yes, there is still aerial combat, MM, and dogfighting ability is a life-or-death matter.

[MineralMan]

17. Still, that was 50 years ago.

I realize that training for aerial combat still goes on. But offensive weaponry has evolved a great deal, and recent opponents in warfare have had limited fighter aircraft deployed. The increasing use of cruise missiles, drones and smart bombs seems to have overtaken a lot of old tactical offense actions.

We're using weaponry that involve standing far off targets, either in distance or altitude or using unmanned drones to deliver tactical weaponry. Given our current projected opponents, it seems to me that the occasions where dogfights between two fighter aircraft would be infrequent in most engagements.

The nature of warfare has changed a great deal since the Vietnam war. I suppose that could change again, but we don't appear to be facing major nations as opponents these days. Most warfare today seems to involve a completely different field of battle and a much changed order of battle among our opponents.

I'm just not seeing where this type of fighter against fighter engagements is likely to be much of a factor going forward.

[leveymg]

25. Tell that to the US military, which counts on air superiority or supremacy just as much

as they did during the Vietnam War era. Aside from Special Forces, the US military cannot operate in an environment where there is a real threat from the air.

The F-35 simply isn't the vehicle to achieve that. At present, the F-22 has that role. There just aren't very many of them.

[MineralMan]

27. The cost of the last couple of generations of fighter aircraft has

limited the numbers available to both forces. I doubt that will change, so tactics are sure to change to match system availability.

I see a decreasing usefulness for this stuff as time goes by, partly due to cost factors. Avoiding confrontations between such expensive equipment will soon be a primary goal, I'm sure.

Warfare is changing fast, but military forces often maintain old methods long after their usefulness diminishes. We'll see, I guess, but the more costly fighter aircraft become, the fewer will be available and pitting them against each other will make less and less sense.

[leveymg]

28. Makes sense to me, as I'm sure the JCS feel the same way.

Now, if we could convince the enthusiasts for conflict and confrontation of that.

[MineralMan]

30. In many ways, it's "boys and their toys" for the military.

The culture is way perverse, IMO.

[jeff47]

12. It depends.

One of the points of making the F-35 is for it to be stealthy. As a result, it would theoretically sneak up on any air-to-air target and kill them before the target knew the F-35 was there.

But as with the F-4 and it's lack of a gun, sometimes theories don't quite work out. We'll see.

[rwsanders]

39. I don't remember where I read it, but somewhere there is an article that said that other militaries

Are shifting to old-fashioned low frequency (or was it low energy?) radar that is not as precise for targeting, but it doesn't have any problem spotting "stealthy" aircraft.
Also, this is a link to a video where the designer of the F-16 says the F-35 is a turkey. The article tries to dispute him, but ends up focusing a lot on the F-15 to discredit him and not so much on the F-35, other than in a theoretical area. I'd say this test gives more credibility to the critic.
http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/pierre-spreys-anti-f-35-diatribe-is-half-brilliant-and-1592445665
The final thing I have read is that the F-35 requires 1000 man-hours of maintenance per flight hour, where the F-15 and F-16 require about 100 per flight hour. (Numbers may not be precise going by memory).

[jeff47]

47. The guy who designed the F-16 believes all fighters should be fantastic dogfighters

And that's just not the case. You need a variety of planes to do a variety of jobs. Not all of those planes can be good dogfighters.

[Paulie]

50. John Boyd

I always chuckle when recalling the YF-16 vs YF-17 fly off competition. The F-16 won, the loser the Navy went for, YF-17 became the F/A-18.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightweight_Fighter_program

[HassleCat]

4. Open rebellion against Osprey II

The Air Force is openly in revolt against the F35. If you were in the military, you know how radical it is for senior officers to buck the system this way. The AF is cheesed off because the Joint Strike Fighter program is burning money at an incredible rate, and may never deliver a plane that performs adequately.

This is so much like the development of the Osprey, the Navy's tilt-rotor aircraft that was supposed to make big helicopters obsolete. After working on the Osprey for 30 years, they finally got it to fly. Sort of. The F-35 is following exactly the same development path as the Osprey, funneling hundreds of millions of dollars to people who promise to fix the bugs.

[stevenleser]

6. What a total disaster.

[gratuitous]

45. "Total disaster" - How can you say that?

Some really lucrative defense contracts have been let, and a few people have gotten wealthy building this fighter jet that doesn't work. That's got to count for something. Actually, it's all that counts.

[underpants]

9. Sounds like a PR campaign for the Top Gun remake

Cue Kenny Loggins

[AZ Progressive]

11. A reflection of America's position in the world

Declining, of course...

[jeff47]

15. I'm not sure it's such a valid comparison.

The F-16 was designed as an air-to-air dogfighter that can kinda carry bombs. A short distance.

The F-35 was always intended to be the cheaper, smaller, multirole version of the F-22.

I'm not sure that this is a really valid comparison - they have a plane that sacrificed everything for dogfighting versus a plane that sacrifices a lot for stealth, range, and internal weapons.

[stevenleser]

20. Actually it was supposed to replace the F-16, A-10 and F/A-18 hornet

I would love to be able to shrug this off, but this is a catastrophe. The F-35 was supposed to be better than the F-16, A-10 and F/A-18 Hornet at all of their roles. That is why this test was important.

http://gao.gov/assets/600/591608.pdf

There are three variants. The conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL) variant will be an air-to-ground replacement for the Air Force’s F-16 Falcon and the A-10 Thunderbolt II aircraft, and will complement the F-22A Raptor. The STOVL variant will
be a multi-role strike fighter to replace the Marine Corps’ F/A-18C/D Hornet and AV-8B Harrier aircraft. The carrier-suitable variant (CV) will provide the Navy a multi-role, stealthy strike aircraft to complement the F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet.

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Lockheed_Martin_F22_and_F35_5th_Gen_Revolution_In_Military_Aviation.html

Standridge added that the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter will be:

- Four times more effective than legacy fighters in air-to-air engagements - Eight times more effective than legacy fighters in prosecuting missions against fixed and mobile targets - Three times more effective than legacy fighters in non-traditional Intelligence Surveillance Reconnaissance (ISR) and Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses and Destruction of Enemy Air Defenses (SEAD/DEAD) missions

[jeff47]

24. Replace those aircraft in role. None of those is used as a dogfighter.

The F-16, for all it's dogfighting prowess, is used by the USAF as a ground attack airplane. So replacing it in the ground attack role does not require the F-35 to be a better dogfighter than the F-16.

Originally, the F-16 was built to be exported. So they made a great, cheap, dogfighting aircraft that could kinda carry bombs so countries like Saudi Arabia and Israel would buy them. When F-15s turned out to be much more expensive, the US bought a bunch of F-16s, but intended to use them mostly for ground combat.

(As a background, IMO we're ending the era of "dogfighting" between manned aircraft. We can build aircraft that can maneuver in ways that would kill the pilot. So we're going to start "dogfighting" by remote control soon. And that greatly colors my reaction to this particular story.)

[corkhead]

18. Sounds like it's time for us to contract Lockheed Martin to build us a new design fighter Jet

[leveymg]

31. They already have, only it isn't manned.

Last edited Tue Jun 30, 2015, 04:47 PM - Edit history (1)

Google: X-45, X-47 and YF-118G Bird of Prey

and the YF-118G (stealth demonstrator)

and, BAE has its own version, the Taranis, closely based on the X-47, as do the Chinese.
But, the unmanned supersonic 9G fighter is already here: http://www.guns.com/2013/09/24/air-force-steps-game-turns-f-16-fighter-jets-unmanned-drones-video/

[tammywammy]

19. Comment from article

Derek
I’m not buying it with good reason. I believe sometimes these so called reports (I am NOT laying this at Tyler’s feet in any way) are put out there by writes who forget there are former military pilots like myself, who never flew an F-35 Lightning II, but did fly F-16 C & D’s.... along with the F-15- C variant. And who have many great friends who flew the F-16 variants and were promoted ad moved into the Lightning II program.(F-35) and fly it every day they are asked to.

I can say I have friends who I speak to regularly who fly both F-35 and F-22 aircraft. Many of the young guys who put all the hours on the F-117’s were first choices to go into both Gen-5 stealth aircraft models. The F-117 was EXTREMELY close t the F-16 cockpit, but I was not chosen for that program.

In my 26 year active an even now in strategic recall status, I have seen weapon systems dogged by unseen powerful entities for several reasons. Some were dogged out of political rhetoric. Some get figuratively chopped because of more important programs. An example of this being Carter shelving the original Mach 2.2 B-1 Lancer. Causing some to rage against the machine, but it was really done to finish paying for ad building the B-2 Spirit. Reagan re-awoke the B-1 program with a salted down B-1-B capable of Mach 1.25 yet now sporting a bit of stealth quality of its own. It also took the strain off the B-52 Buff’s and allowed for the axing of the F-111 Aardvark.

I would say the closest analog of the F-35 fight is the USAF doing everything it can to run a spear through the heart of the A-10 Thunderbolt 2. The different branches of the Military all have a yearly budget. However, the F-35 is crossing all three Jet flying services. The USAF, The USN and The USMC all ill fly the F-35. So one guess is that one of the Military branches is losing a ton of budget appropriations to the F-35 program so they are throwing as many things against the F-35 wall trying to make something stick, while flying the very capable aircraft they already fly. There may be SOME truth there, but I don’t believe that is the primary reason.

Even so, the stick being poked into the F-35’s eye feels and looks like something else I’ve seen before. Albeit on a smaller scale

My opinion of how to find the culprit is always the same.... Follow the cash. In this case, follow the supertanker full of cash. First let me ask this....

*Who is building the F-35..? Lockheed, Right..?

* Who is the largest supplier of military jey aircraft to the USA..? Boeing...

Because of Lockheed getting the F-35, Boeing is out...

This piece was printed in September of 2014..... There are others... But take a read HERE....... By understanding who has the most to lose from the Joint Strike Fighter program. You get an idea why they are carving up the reputation of what my very good and trustworthy USAF pilot friends say about the F-35 Thunderbolt 2 Jet Fighter. And THEY SAY (The Men who fly it daily) that it is a fantastic fighter jet. One that is superior over all but the most elite US fighter aircraft.
http://247wallst.com/aerospace-defense/2014/09/21/are-military-fighter-planes-finished-at-boeing/

[geek tragedy]

21. "One that is superior over all but the most elite US fighter aircraft. "

Wait, isn't this supposed to be the "most elite US fighter aircraft?"

[jeff47]

26. No, that's the F-22. But F-22's are even more expensive than F-35s. (nt)

[geek tragedy]

29. looks like MIC bingo is not my game nt

[sir pball]

53. Only because we made under 200 of the things.

If we had stuffed the -35 ten years ago and cranked up production on the -22, developed a multirole and maybe even a naval version, and let the export market sort itself out, we'd be sitting much prettier now. Incremental cost is only ~10% more and the development is finished...but I suspect TBPB don't mind having a neverending black hole of cash, I mean, if I were on the receiving end of the -35 project I'd let it keep going and going and going..

[jeff47]

55. IIRC, the Navy didn't like how big they were

And there's no way to use it to replace the Harrier, so the Marines wouldn't like it.

It probably would have been cheaper for the AF to build more F-22s, but then the Navy needs to design a stealthy F-18, and the Marines still need a VTOL. IMO, it's a good idea to divide the F-35's development budget by 3 to get a better idea of what it really costs, since not doing the F-35 would still mean the Navy and Marines would develop new airplanes.

(Of course, an even better solution is to stop subsidizing the defense budgets of the other NATO countries via our massive spending. Maybe some of them could cover the bill for developing that new VTOL)

[sir pball]

56. I think that was the YF-23

It was too long to fit in front of the blast deflectors, if I remember right (I could not, though)...that was supposedly one of the reasons the -22 won out even though it was less stealthy and slower. And then the Navy dropped the NATF like a year later, probably because Lockheed promised them a fire-breathing unicorn.

Even dividing the development budget like you suggest, I bet it would have been cheaper to expand the Raptor into multirole and naval and give the Marines $$ to develop a single-purpose stealth VTOL - that seems to be the biggest single problem with the Lightning, it's like trying to retrofit a pickup bed onto a sports car. At any rate, it's now all obscure military history/ifs-and-buts; we're stuck with this laughable boondoggle that probably won't be in full service for another twenty years.

[tammywammy]

57. F-35 is paid for by the partner countries too.

United Kingdom, Italy, Australia, Canada, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Turkey.

[truebrit71]

22. Not good news if the war-mongers have their way and all-out war erupts in Ukraine...

...but hey, they have lots of other toys to play with...

[Oneironaut]

23. But it made the defense industry a lot of money.

Mission success!

[hardluck]

32. Failed to learn the Lessons of the F-111

Multi-service, multi-mission aircraft are almost invariably overweight compromises that excel at none of the missions they are intended for. Here, the F-35 is to be used by the USAF, Navy, and Marines to replace the A-10, F-16, F/A-18, and AV-8B. Realistically, how is a single platform/airframe going to replace all of those airplanes - a ground attack aircraft, an (originally) low cost air superiority fighter, a multirole naval fighter, and a V/SOL aircraft - without major compromises. At least out of the F-111 debacle we got some good hardware/avionics that made it to the teen series fighter. I doubt we will be so lucky this time.

Here's a good companion piece to the OP's article:

https://medium.com/war-is-boring/fd-how-the-u-s-and-its-allies-got-stuck-with-the-worlds-worst-new-warplane-5c95d45f86a5

What a disaster.

[onethatcares]

33. what I always wonder

How good are all these fighter planes against 10 pissed off people with box cutters?

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

34. But..but...we have to spend billions on both because aerial combat is so common!

It happens every hour of every day, year after year.

Or, maybe not.

[ffr]

35. Not at all surprised.

The F-16 Fighting Falcon was originally designed to be an air superiority dogfighter. About it's only weakness is foul weather, which other air superiority fighters like the F-15 Eagle (104 to 0) and F-14 Tomcat were designed for.

FFWD to 2:43m
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[Downtown Hound]

36. LOL. In five years, I have a hunch that the F-35 is going to make its critics eat crow

Every weapon we've ever had has gone through this. People said the same thing about the F-16 when it first came out. Now they're calling it the greatest dogfighter ever and using it as the gold standard to bash the F-35.

I'm not saying that the F-35 doesn't deserve some criticism. It was a mistake to have one single air frame do the job of 3 different aircraft. That attempt to save money only hampered the F-35's performance and ended up costing way more than if they had just built 3 different aircraft for each job. But the idea that this aircraft won't even be able to beat a fourth generation fighter in a dogfight when it's fully operational is a bunch of crap. It is just as agile if not slightly more so and has way more advanced avionics and electronic warfare capabilities. Not to mention it's stealth and networked with all other F-35's and a variety of other combat systems as well, so if you shoot at one, every other F-35 within range knows you just shot at it, and they'll be coming to pay you a visit. Oh, and if you want to really know why I think this story is bullshit, the bit about how an F-35 pilot can't see behind them in a dogfight? Oh no! Because the F-35 can actually shoot missiles behind it. And radar and computers can do the guidance work for the pilot. So let's just say I don't see that being the dire sky-is-falling scenario the article makes it out to be.

The F-35 is definitely overpriced and a lesson in throwing too much weight into one project. But will it be a useless piece of junk when ready? Hardly. There's propaganda of all kinds out there, folks. There's propaganda from the MIC to get us to support wars and defense spending, and there's propaganda from those opposed to it. There's also propaganda from those within the MIC to get us to not like a particular system because they just happen to have a product of their own to replace it. Never trust just one source.

[Orrex]

38. If it doesn't can we demand a full refund plus interest?

[stevenleser]

44. Never heard anyone say the F-16 is the best dogfighter ever but your point has merit.

I hope the issues with the F-35 can be fixed. And yes, other planes and systems have gone through adjustments after they first came out that resolved their issues. I am just very worried that the problems with the F-35 are too fundamental to be fixed.

[Ichingcarpenter]

37. One plane would pay how many teachers for 10 years?

or nurses, social workers, or things or people of real value that help this planet?

[blackspade]

40. I guess they don't make planes like they used too....

Older planes are better, cheaper, and still more advanced that other military powers'.

[DetlefK]

49. No, the F-35 is simply a bastard-breed.

It's supposed to replace 4 kinds of specialized planes and be better at their job than every single one of them.

[blackspade]

54. Thus my comment.

Older planes are cheaper, and better at their functions than these new planes.
But sure, we should just keep throwing money at projects that make CEOs rich and don't make us 'safer.'

[DemoTex]

41. Check Six!

Always check six.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

46. That's why pilots wore silk scarves....

Their heads were on a constant swivel to stop the enemy from getting behind them. They'd rub their neck raw on those wool uniform shirts.

[KeepItReal]

48. You can't in the F-35. Big blind spot. Where are the pitchforks?

It's like the plane was sabotaged by design.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

42. One of my friends is a (now retired) navy test pilot

He had absolutely nothing good to say about this thing and should it ever actually come to replace the F-18 Hornet the US Navy will be rolling back it's carrier based fighter/bomber capabilities to the days before the F-4 Phantom, literally the 1950's.

[whatchamacallit]

43. I'll take Dead Giveaways for $1000, Alex

And the answer is: Military Fetishism

"What's as reliable as rabid Michael Moore Hate?"

[HFRN]

51. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence,

whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

[Enthusiast]

52. This is just more horrible unjustified military waste.

Waste is always unjustified.