Makes sense. Same reason they got two guys in attack helis.

KlarSnow, how do you figure the odds of an engagement ending up in a WVR fight, despite the current BVR technology, especially against opponents not from 3rd World countries?

My layman's POV regarding the F-35: every Death Star has its thermal exhaust port.

Sorry I will read this whole thread later (in case my point has been discussed). But if the "dogfight" capability is to be dismissed as old fashioned why not just outfit a 737 with a big radar and a bunch of hardpoints and let it fire away from 100 clicks? I don't read much about this stuff anymore--probably obvious given my previous statement. But I have discussed this with several fighter guys and they think the F-35 is a national embarrassment. Somebody's getting rich off the thing so I guess that's good.

@ GrayGhost:

That's exactly my point. With ECM/ECCM, doesn't that cut the range of missiles? Or at least lower their pK? End of the day, the F-35 or indeed any other aircraft won't have a very long stick to play with and WVR fights will still be happening.

As for fights/evasive/defensive maneuvers, that's a complex topic and we'd need to define stuff like is it 1v1? 1v2? 2v1? Same altitude? Different altitude? etc. etc.... but let us assume a 4v4 fight, head on, medium altitude. Sure, maybe the F-35s can fire before the F-16s can and the Vipers might have a hard time locking on to the F-35s (stealth and what have you).... but are you saying the F-35 can wipe out the F-16s without losing one F-35? All it takes is a split second of opportunity and you could have an expensive fireball.

This reminds me of the tank battles of WWII (sorry, been watching a few of those lately). They say that the German tanks were a marvel of engineering at that time, but they simply could not compete against the horde of inferior tanks.

Sure, the F-35 could be the bee's knees, but how many cheaper fighters would it take before losing one F-35 becomes more painful than killing 10 enemy aircraft?


Not sure exactly what your tone is here, but yeah... 2 F-35s vs 1 attacker... did you seriously think that was the scenario I was describing?

I'm not "hahaha-ing" the SE or Hornet, what I'm laughing at is the constant use of "multi-role" even when the term does not fit. Sure, multi-role.... there's also the expression of "jack of all trades, master of none."


Yeah... I'm not privvy to how much things cost but surely the amount of EXTRA money spent on the F-35.... how much are they thinking this aircraft will "save" the bottom line once it enters service? How long before everybody recoups the billions over-spent?



Bottom line though: there'll always be another side to the story and I guess until the aircarf enters service and actually gets its baptism of fire, everything is just speculation.

However, for a program that has had so much setbacks, bad press, and all-in-all negative attention, you'd think they'd want to ace whatever tests they went on. "Yeah, I'm super smart, but I'll just fail this mid-term exam so nobody knows how smart I am."

In regard to this article, from what I've been reading about the F-35 is that current F-35s still have limited maneuverability (or in an another perspective, still doesn't have it's full maneuver/agility capabilities enabled) due to safety constraints (remember the aircraft is till under testing). The same can be said about the F-35 current engine's performance.

Besides what I would like to know is what was the fuel load on that F-35? Was that F-35 fully loaded with fuel? Was the F-16D also fully loaded with fuel?
If yes, than and by doing the math the Thrust to Weight Ratio of both aircraft is the same or very similar, which is: 0.90 (which makes sense equipping the F-16D with two 370 gal drop tanks - this seems to give the F-16D the same Thrust to Weight Ratio as the F-35A). But even with both aircraft having the same Thrust to Weight Ratio (0.90) and while the F-16D was quipped with 2 external 270 gal drop tanks, the combat radius of the F-35A is actually higher (around 613 nautical miles) compared with that F-16D (with 2 370 gal drop tanks) which is around 526 nautical miles. Both these two combat radius values for both the F-35 and F-16 are while equipped with similar weaponry which wasn't the case here since both aircraft flew unarmed.

After doing some search I came up with the Thrust to Weight Ratio of 0.90 for both aircraft using the following data (all weights including fuel weight and thrust are in pounds):
F-35A empty weight: 29098 lb
F-35A full internal fuel: 18498 lb
F-35A full weight (sum of the last two): 47596 lb
F-35A engine thrust on Afterburner regime: 43000 lbf
F-35A Thrust to Weight Ratio: 0.90

F-16D empty weight: 18900 lb
F-16D full internal fuel: 5835 lb
F-16D external fuel (two 370 gal tanks): 6174 lb
F-16D drop tank weight (the weight of two empty 370 gal tanks): 700 lb
F-16D full weight (sum of the last four): 31609 lb
F-16D engine thrust on Afterburner regime: 28600 lbf
F-16D Thrust to Weight Ratio: 0.90

Needless to say that the F-35 while equipped with the same fuel (less than full internal fuel capacity) that grants the same range as the F-16D with two 370 gal drop tanks will have a Thrust to Weight Ratio actually higher than the F-16.
So this IMO means that there were certainly considerable constraints (due to testing safety) in terms of engine performance and agility imposed on the F-35 while the F-16 didn't have any (apart from having 2 external fuel tanks).

Finally about the F-35 agility, what I've read so far is that the F-35 combines in terms of agility the best of the F-16 (energy maneuvering) with the best of the F/A-18 (turning maneuverability with High Angle of Attack maneuvering).

Excellent point, SH!

While the Reddit article does make a bit of sense, it also doesn't.... because while the guys flying the F-16 has had years of experience with the aircraft, BFM is still BFM. Assuming the F-35 is an awesome aircraft that just can't be pushed to the limits because of not being certified, well, good luck chucking a few more billion $$$ to it.

Cant really say what the chances of a fight progressing from BVR to WVR are in the modern environment, especially with a 5th gen full up fighter like the F-22 or (supposedly) the PAK-FA or J-20 Mighty dragon, but that is exactly what advanced ECM is designed to do, degrade BVR ops into the WVR fight where OPFOR fighters have the advantage.

Will say that we train for it, so when/if it happens we are prepared to go to the merge.

Other thing to consider is ROE driving a BVR fight into a WVR fight, I may very well be able to kill you a long ways out, but that doesn't mean I have ROE met and can shoot. Different conflicts will have different ROE. Pretending this isn't a significant part of a BVR engagement in the real world, is well...foolish.

And BFM is a little more complicated than that. It is knowing how to max perform the aircraft. The techniques you use to BFM in a strike eagle and flying techniques to max perform it are going to be a very different skill set than that of a F-16, and the winning and losing cues and what you are doing are absolutely dependent on who and what you are fighting. Do they have High off boresight capability? I am going to fight them differently than if they don't, etc... etc...

Don't be so sure people haven't tried to make that happen



I think the F-35 program will be the gold standard of failure by which all appropriations failures will be measured for the next century, but outside of this article, which I am dubious of, I don't see how the aircraft itself is unsound.

WVR combat is important, yes, but you have to actually find the enemy before you can fight him. I'd rather be flying an aircraft that has the ability unilaterally determine when, where, how, and if a knife fight is going to start over a jet that is more maneuverable. You can turn as hard as you like, you're going to have a bad time defending against an AIM-9X shot from dead astern inside of two miles.

To complement what I said previously that the F-35 is designed to combine in terms of maneuverability/agility the best of the F-16 (energy maneuvering) with the best of the F/A-18 (turning maneuverability with High Angle of Attack maneuvering), we're talking an aircraft which will be very agile and very capable even in the dogfight/WVR arena. So we are NOT talking about a Boeing 737 here (or some other type of aircraft that lacks agility).
Also what has been said about the F-35 which was designed mainly for air-to-ground missions with air-to-air capabilities being a very secondary roles are quite false. The F-35 was designed for air-to-ground missions just as it was for air-to-air missions (multi-role). What happens here is that the USAF (with the F-35A) planned to use their F-35As almost exclusively on air-to-ground missions while the F-22 would almost exclusively be used on air-to-air missions or resuming mimicking and directly replacing the current fleet and roles of F-15C (air-to-air missions) and F-16s (air-to-ground missions). BTW, the USAF uses their F-16s almost exclusively on air-to-ground missions, so does this mean that the F-16 can't perform air-to-air missions or that it can't perform air-to-air missions very well? Obviously not! Just look at other air forces like Netherlands, Belgium or Portugal (among may others) and see how great the F-16 is in the air-to-air roles. The F-35 will be the future F-16 and that's it and I'm sure that the F-35 will surpass the F-16 is almost every regard!

Resuming the F-35 will be very capable of handling air-to-air missions. Actually I recently read that the F-35 will actually be USAFs main fighter even in air-to-air roles. This is due to the small number of F-22 built and available for combat (only 124 F-22s are ready for combat).

Regarding agility/maneuverability of the F-35 I have no doubts that the F-35 will surpass the F-16 and F/A-18 in this area but even so, I agree that dogfight/WVR combats will trend to be a thing of the past. Of course this doesn't mean that dogfight/WVR combat can't happen in the future.
The problem with dogfight/WVR compared with BVR combat is that in dogfight/WVR an outdated aircraft can still have chances to shot down the most advanced fighter aircraft (no matter how slim those chances may be or look)! For example lets get skip back a generation or two and compare two well known fighter aircraft, the F-15 and the Mig-21.
In a BVR combat the Mig-21 doesn't have a chance (0% chance) against a F-15 and this is due in great part to the fact that the Mig-21 doesn't have the ability to detect the F-15 in BVR (and much less to engage it with any weapons/missiles). But if both aircraft merge than the chances for the Mig-21 will definitely rise. While the odds still greatly favour the F-15 in dogfight/WVR the fact is that the Mig-21 will have a chance of defeating the F-15 (doesn't matter how slim these chances may look).
Actually if we look into the past we've seen A-1 Skyraiders shooting down much more advanced Mig-17s, does this mean that the A-1 is better than the Mig-17? Of course not!

And that's why BVR is the bet for the future - If you can defeat an enemy from afar you simply won't get close, it's simple as that!

Finally I don't agree that the F-35 will be the "gold standard of failure" but by the contrary! I believe that this will be one of the most successful military aircraft programs in the history and I believe that the F-35 program will be quite similar to the F-14 program which was a program that was also massively criticized during its time, accompanied by some failures (which BTW are normal during aircraft development) but some reason got some major echo within the press but in the end ended up being on of the best military aeronautical feats in the history of military aviation!

So many experts on this forum.

Thanks!

Because that is the old "if two aspirin will make my headache go away 20 will make it go away quicker" type argument.

There is a "sweet spot" in the size, range, speed, payload etc. of any vehicle and it should be obvious that a 737 isn't it for a strike fighter. And I'm not saying the F-35 is that sweet spot, but it is closer than a 737 for sure.

There's also the false idea that there are other countries out there with hundreds of 4+ gen fighters to send against F-35s. Fighters have gotten more expensive globally. The older cheaper planes are largely not a threat due to serviceability and capability issues. Yeah, 1000 MiG-21s vs 10 F-35s are going to win, but no one has 1000 MiG-21s anymore!
Most countries that have older air forces (not all, but most) also don't have high readiness for them. If they have 300 in their inventory, they're not sending up 300. Maybe 150 will be mission ready, and then they'll have aborts and other issues and they'll effectively have 100.

Now why would anyone assume that if we know they have like 100 fighters we're going to send 5? This entire "we will be outnumbered" thing is the BIGGEST false assumption made. When was the last time the US went into an air campaign without numerical superiority? Yeah, it was over 40 years ago.

Stalin said "quantity has a quality all its own", but then Reagan said "why not just do both?" We're going to buy a couple of thousand F-35s or so, give or take a few hundred. Very few of the other countries buying F-35s would be expected to use them by themselves. Pretty much Israel I would think and that's it. Everyone else is going to be fighting alongside other F-35s operators.

It's not hard to cherry pick a scenario where an F-35 is going to be at a disadvantage, but as Klar said that's not what's likely. You think that these leaked FOUO reports (if they're real) convey more information to us than the real classified ones do to the guys planning combat with them? You think they don't know what's a weakness, what's a strength, and how to work that?

Yeah, there's corruption and waste with the F-35 program, so that it's taking a lot more time and a lot more money than it should. That said, the actual rank-and-file people working on it want it to succeed, whether they're contractors or in uniform, and they're not stupid. They will communicate and plan and the F-35 will be as effective in tomorrow's battlefield as the F-16s and Hornets are on today's, if not more.

Complaining about the performance or capabilities is a bugaboo...it's not the problem! It's a smokescreen. The REAL problem is that the plane was supposed to be like $30 million a copy when this program started and obviously SOMEONE knew that would never happen but it was bought.

The plane is going to be fine. The people flying it are going to be fine. The people who are lining their pockets over this unfortunately will also be fine unless people demand accountability. THEY are the ones that should be scrutinized, not the plane.

If I'm paying $100,000 for a Toyota Camry, don't tell me you think there's a mark on the leather seats or the knob on the radio is loose or the passenger door squeaks, it's irrelevant! Find out WHY IT COSTS $100,000 for what should cost $25,000!!! That's all that matters!





The Jedi Master

I think it's mostly being taken out of context. The report seems to suggest that the aircraft has capability that the software isn't allowing it to use. Yes, it has an energy deficiency, but there are other aspects of it that might help it out if the software didn't stop the pilot from using those qualities (specifically pitch rate here, and the delay in effect from rudder input).



Par for the course, but it will probably be cheaper in the long run. It seems like it's taking a bit of turn like software. If you do all the testing automation etc. up front you pay more, because you double or triple development time. However once you've done this, you get a more solid product in the future and upgrades are better controlled, potentially faster and released with more confidence because you can at least eliminate the possibility of re-introducing old regressions, and it might even catch new bugs.
It's quite costly up-front though. The savings come in later.

With the F-35, because you can in theory do 'more' with fewer planes, you have savings because you fly fewer sorties/use less fuel/weapons/pilots/airframes to accomplish a goal that you would with 4gen fighters. And for the present at least, you also expect fewer losses.

I fully agree.
We don't need to go back very far in time to look into a real life example rather similar as what you described (although we're not talking about thousands of aircraft or a massive outnumbering). For example during Operation Allied Force (Kosovo) in 1999 the Serbian Air Force had around 50 to 100 (if I'm not mistaken some sources even said more than 100) Mig-21s while they only had around 18-19 Mig-29s and the Serbians only used the Mig-29s (no Mig-21s were used, at least as far as I know). They didn't try a "massive" intercept with their Mig-21s.




Of course there are problems (and big problems) with the F-35 software! The current version of the F-35 software which is Block 2B is essentially a BETA software. I guess that all of us here (or at least the vast majority) already tried beta software. Did you ever see or tried a beta software without any problems? I don't!
Even so the Marines will declare Initial Operational Capability (IOC) for their F-35Bs with the Block 2B software while the USAF will declare IOC for their F-35As next year (2016) using Block 3i software which is also a BETA software and as such it will also have problems as well.
Noticing and finding problems (and later correcting them) is part of development stages which is the stage where the F-35 program is currently at.
Only in 2018 will the final software version be completed (and started to be installed in the aircraft) which will be version Block 3F. Only then (2018 with Block 3F) can anyone expect a F-35 without problems.

Now why on earth will the USMC and the USAF declare IOC for their F-35s with Beta software is something that somehow puzzles me, I must admit. If I'm allowed to speculate regarding the Marines is that the current F-35B with Block 2B is already much better than their current AV-8B Harriers (which the F-35B will replace) but again this only speculation from my part and then there's also the USAF IOC next year (also with beta software).

Regardless of the actual merits of the F-35, its a fact that the immense amount of resources and political prioritization devoted to the program have left many other areas of the U.S. military short.

There are an awful lot of eggs in that basket.

Because they are aware of the deficiencies and they will plan on mitigating them.

They've planned to introduce the aircraft now, and that's what they will do, and keep upgrading it. This is pretty much the same path taken by the vast majority of predecessors.

You have to remember that the F-35 program is essentially a 3 (three) fighter aircraft in 1 (one) program where those 3 aircraft while having common avionics and systems and somehow a basic common airframe they are quite different in terms of operational demands. I'm talking of course about the F-35A (the conventional takeoff and landing or CTOL), the F-35B (the short take-off and vertical landing or STOVL) and finally the F-35C the (Catapult Assisted Take-Off But Arrested Recovery or CATOBAR or simply conventional carrier variant).

These three aircraft while sharing a common basic airframe they still have considerable differences among them: For example the F-35B has the lift fan and variable main engine nozzle for vertical landings and short takeoffs or even vertical takeoffs, the F-35C has a reinforced airframe and larger wings in order to be optimized for carrier operations and the F-35A is the simplest (and cheaper) version of all.

On top of this, the F-35 is designed to replace the following and very different aircraft: F-16, F/A-18, AV-8B Harrier and F-117 and that's by no way a small feat!

What I mean with this is if it was decided to order 3 different aircraft (one to replace the F-16 and even the F-117, an another to replace the F/A-18 and finally an another to replace the Harrier) instead of going ahead with the F-35 program, I personally have NO doubts that the sum of those 3 aircraft projects would be bigger than the entire F-35 program albeit I admit that it could take less time for those projects to be completed when compared to the entire F-35 program (specially if each of those aircraft would be assigned to a different company).

I think the reason the USMC is declaring IOC come hell or high water is they want to get rid of the Harriers ASAP to free up that money spent on its logistics.
On paper they're giving up some capability short term with the departure of the proven Harriers, but I think they believe the sooner they're gone the sooner they have 35Bs that have been tested in the field and had the kinks ironed out.

Also, the Marines are in a bit of a lull right now. They've come off the SW Asia conflicts (the other 3 services are far more involved there now than the USMC is) and are rejuvenating their forces for the future.

This is the time to get the Harriers out and the 35Bs in before something boils over somewhere else and then they won't have the luxury of a (relative) peacetime transition of their air forces.




The Jedi Master