The F-35: Better Than You Think

"F-35 can't dogfight" is as ridiculous as "military sniper would lose in a boxing match against former heavyweight champion George Foreman."

For a historical context both the F-16 and F/A-18, along with many other fighters were heavily criticized when they entered service. But as we know now both fighter are highly successful designs.

I'm a retired US Navy Officer and I'd love to share a comment and a suggestion for a new show. Not only is the F-35 a really good plane--on its own--but I'd suggest that it is the most revolutionary naval aircraft in history, by a large margin. The Naval variant of the F-35, with VSTOL technology, is so good and so versatile that it has redefined naval warfare. Before the F-35, navies with jump-deck carriers were limited to planes like the Harrier. They were super cool for their time (the 1970's) but were slow, had limited range and were no match for even a 1960's F-4 (ask the RN about the fun they had in the Falklands). With the Harrier, modern navies could have a fixed wing air arm on paper, but God help them if they ever encountered a real air force. The F-35, on the other hand, can take off from a jump deck and actually perform like a real fighter. Even better, it can use it's VSTOL capability to take off and land from a completely flat deck of an amphibious ship or even a large destroyer! Think about that. Any navy with F-35's and a large, flat deck ship suddenly has a pretty capable fixed wing fighter force. Now, they use a lot of fuel taking off and landing like that, and there are some other performance limitations, but they are still pretty damn good, fixed wing, stealth, 5th generation planes. Suddenly, Australia, Spain, The Netherlands, Japan, Good Korea (South Korea), and any other US ally with a large flat decked amphibious ship potentially has a small but very powerful naval air force. This changes everything.

"If you asked the consumer what they wanted, they'd have just asked for faster horses" -Henry Ford

Another piece of missing context from the "F-35 cant dogfight" report is that it was very early days of its flight control software package. This software was missing critical parameters regarding 'energy management' which defines best turning radius and speed parameters for the computers to target during dogfighting. Meaning, the F35 is now much better at 'pointing its nose'. That said, its clearly not designed as an air superiority fighter. As a multi role fighter its designed to replace f-16's and f-18's. F-22's and in due time, the NGAD will fill the air dominance role.

I remember when the F-15 was starting to come online and critics, including members of Congress, complained that it had only a single mission, it was too expensive, and too complicated for the average maintainer to work on. The F-15 has come a long way and is still a potent aircraft.

The workforce is everything. If you don't build these advanced aircraft, you will not have anyone who can. The cost of these projects is the cost of maintaining the knowledge and skills to create it.

due to the many published articles knocking the F-35 I now realize that I have completely misunderstood what an F-35 really is all about. Thanks Simon as I stand corrected now

When you get old enough, as a military aviation enthusiast, you remember how EVERY new weapons system ever introduced has the same challenges and commentary. Even today new systems and capability are being added, worldwide, to systems that have served for a while.

Ok, so the complaint in the "F-35 can't dogfight" paper was that it couldn't win against an F-16 attacking from the rear? Neither can an F-16. That scenario is considered the most difficult dogfight out there. So much so that even experienced pilots are expected to lose if jumped from behind.

The f35 can’t destroy a squadron of su57s, because there isn’t a squadron of su57s!

A friend of mine is an F 35 pilot and over the course of a 10 day backpacking trip I heard numerous tales of its use in combat and his general opinions of it. Suffice to say, he raved about this aircraft and loves flying it.

The whole "dogfighting vs. networking" thing reminds me of the cheesy climax of an action movie where the villain says "And what do you have that I don't?" and the hero(ine) says "I have FRIENDS!" and then the whole team busts in to save the day.

It would seem people have forgotten to ask two simple questions. What was it designed to do? Does it do what it was designed to do?

I’ve noticed that the air show f35 demos have become more snappy, showing off the nimbleness of the plane. And it is pretty damn impressive. Even after watching the f16s. It does things well.

As a French viewer I found really cute your pronounciation of the Dassault Rafale. You were quite right with Dassault but the e at the end of Rafale is silent. You made it sound like the firstname Raphaël which was really cute and fun to hear ;) And as proud as I can be of our home made Rafale, I am still quite happy we are allies with the USA :)

In the firstt point you also missed that the F-35 in that dogfighting test was electronically restricted in performance capabilities as they were still trying to sort the avionics and flight controls. It wasn't even a fully functioning F35.

As an engineer who worked on F-35 and some other fighters, I often describe the jump in capabilities as going from a flip phone to an iPhone for the pilot.

I work on the 35 As I have for around 8 years now. I've seen what they can do and the path forward for them in the next ten years of retrofits. I can tell you with upmost certainty, that where we did go wrong with some of the purchasing aspects, and some of the issues of the program as a whole (not to get too specific but many of the support programs have been worked on through the length of the program, or the Airforce is currently going in a different direction) The F35 was not a waste, and 5th gen as a whole is leagues above any generation prior. The problem I think where people have, was the marketing of Lockheed for proposed uses as a multirole fighter. Also the if you have not worked on Jets, you don't know that the program that the jet comes with, upon purchasing is so much more than just the bird. (it's support for parts, it's engineer access, pilot/maintenance training, AGE, and external parts, it's warranty coverage, it's future upgrade potential, it's the tracking of maintenance across the fleet, and so so much more.) It is phenomenally good at the role we currently use it for. I've been to red flag in Vegas and AK, and have put my bird up and seen the numbers it comes down with. Some of which are in the numbers of 18 to 1 and that's against 16s and 22s with more experienced pilots I've seen the numbers other fighters come down with. 90% of the media that you hear on the 35 is people who have not ever stood even near one. There are negatives, and from a person who has been in the program, has done nose to tail maintenance on avionics, crew Cheif, fuels, LO, weapons, is a Craftsman ( or 7 level that oversees many of the maintenance from others now) I can say that you can make a case that the negatives could out way the positives. But as far as the role as it actually preforms, it is the best bird any country has ever put in the air.

Love this format. It's refreshing to hear a nice counter to prevailing opinions on a given topic.