F-35: What The Pilots Say

Just read that mag yesterday at work. Even that doesn’t cover some of the things I’ve been reading in Combat Aircraft Monthly. 30 to 1 kill rates at Red Flag. They did a test last year at MCAS Beaufort against 4th gen fighters and it dominated again there. Everyone who’s flown it say it’s the easiest to fly, most lethal aircraft they’ve ever flown.

Even costs are becoming a more palatable $100 million ish per copy. Whether or not it’s worth it is debatable. With the recent announcement from the AF to purchase the F-15X, it would seem that 4th gen fighters will be around for some time.
 
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It's turning out to be exactly what I've been saying it was. The F35 is the biggest government boondoggle ever, a shining, stellar example of defense department ineptitude and government contractor waste, a bastard step child born out of bureaucratic committee and corruption, loved by no one...

until it wasn't.

Now it will be the genius next gen plane to rule the world. The best warplane ever devised, a divine instrument of destruction, darling of the airshow and aviation porn hanging on every warbirds fan wall. Folks we've been down this road before. Like I said years ago, the plane will be just fine in the end and it sounds like it is. Now hopefully it will have a long career of just playing war games and attending airshows and nothing else.
 
I got my copy of Air&Space a couple of days ago and read the article. Looking at the teething problems (budgetary and technical) in the rear view mirror, based on the history of other bleeding edge projects that were ultimately great successes, F-35 development followed a pretty predictable trajectory with lots of naysayers along the way.
 
Dav8or said:
It's turning out to be exactly what I've been saying it was. The F35 is the biggest government boondoggle ever, a shining, stellar example of defense department ineptitude and government contractor waste, a bastard step child born out of bureaucratic committee and corruption, loved by no one...

until it wasn't.

Now it will be the genius next gen plane to rule the world. The best warplane ever devised, a divine instrument of destruction, darling of the airshow and aviation porn hanging on every warbirds fan wall. Folks we've been down this road before. Like I said years ago, the plane will be just fine in the end and it sounds like it is. Now hopefully it will have a long career of just playing war games and attending airshows and nothing else.
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It can, at one time, be both overpriced and wonderful.
 
I had the privileged last week of getting a behind the scenes tour of an F35 squadron. This was capped off with a sidelines viewing of their first demonstration practice. Was petty amazing seeing these in actions.
 
3803D99F-6F72-44A2-A675-02BB60373B2D.jpeg First year on the US circuit.
 
Pilawt said:
Excellent article - thanks for the link.

There's an F-35 on my license plate, in honor of nearby Luke AFB ...

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A pair of those circled the house a few weekends ago, I think they were holding for the anthem cue at PIR , boy those things are noisy
 
Saw it’s demo a couple years ago and my lasting though was....


It will turn on a dime and leave a nickel change.
 
It's a neat jet, however it's not a replacement for anything we currently have. I just got home from 2 weeks at Red Flag and a week at Luke - all flying with the F-35. Their kill ratio at red flag was less than 1:1. Their kill ratio during the BFM competition last week was 1.33:1. My old F-15C's were in the neighborhood of 7:1 and 4:1 respectively.
 
EvilEagle said:
It's a neat jet, however it's not a replacement for anything we currently have. I just got home from 2 weeks at Red Flag and a week at Luke - all flying with the F-35. Their kill ratio at red flag was less than 1:1. Their kill ratio during the BFM competition last week was 1.33:1. My old F-15C's were in the neighborhood of 7:1 and 4:1 respectively.
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Too much math.... so your are saying it sucks, correct?
 
Unit74 said:
Too much math.... so your are saying it sucks, correct?
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I'm saying it's not perfect, and can easily be bested by others. There's no silver bullet airplane, it takes training, solid tactics and a lack of over-reliance on technology.

I'm also saying if they offered it to me, I'd say no thanks.
 
Unit74 said:
Too much math.... so your are saying it sucks, correct?
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He's saying there's a lot of hype surrounding the type, and it's A-A stats for being LO are not that hot. Laypeople misunderstand its capabilities in the WVR regime, appendage measuring as that may be in the 21st century battle space. Do understand, @EvilEagle is an F-15 dude, so I would expect his allegiances lean towards the Raptor flying club.
 
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hindsight2020 said:
He's saying there's a lot of hype surrounding the type, and it's A-A stats for being LO are not that hot. Laypeople misunderstand its capabilities in the WVR regime, appendage measuring as that may be in the 21st century battle space. Do understand, @EvilEagle is an F-15 dude, so I would expect his allegiances lean towards the Raptor flying club.
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My allegiances lean towards what we need to win the next fight; I have my final flight in a USAF jet in 17 months - no personal gains in the mix. Raptors would be great, but they aren't on the menu (and they aren't perfect either). 1300 F-35's ain't going to do it IMHO.
 
hindsight2020 said:
He's saying there's a lot of hype surrounding the type, and it's A-A stats for being LO are not that hot. Laypeople misunderstand its capabilities in the WVR regime, appendage measuring as that may be in the 21st century battle space. Do understand, @EvilEagle is an F-15 dude, so I would expect his allegiances lean towards the Raptor flying club.
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Speak engrish man...
 
EvilEagle said:
My allegiances lean towards what we need to win the next fight; I have my final flight in a USAF jet in 17 months - no personal gains in the mix. Raptors would be great, but they aren't on the menu (and they aren't perfect either). 1300 F-35's ain't going to do it IMHO.
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Replied above before I saw your reply.

It wasn't a jab, just an observation from around the water cooler down here. It doesn't surprise me in the least to hear a 4th gen AA guy turn his nose at a -35. I hear that ---- all the time at RND LOL. I get it though, it's a brave new world. "Flight leads of One", is the new product the borg demands. Working hard down here buddy, but we can't produce 5th gen wingmen with century series fighters and -20NL break turns LOL. This place jumped the shark a while ago.

Congrats on the upcoming retirement. Frankly I'm surprised you've held on this long especially since getting the Delta call a few years ago. Most people around here with 20 year letters are gone on the dot. We're even losing guys cold turkey without 20 yr letters. That emboldened they've become with the whole airline hiring thing. We'll see what this year brings.
 
Unit74 said:
Speak engrish man...
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yeah man, it's a turkey. That's what that means. The point is pedestrians don't recognize an F-16 from a Mig-21, so it doesn't matter anyways. The things that make a multi-role assets relevant in the 21st century battle space deal with more than dogfighting performance stats, and the -35 is jam packed with classified goodies that have nothing to do with how good it looks on a demo routine at proverbial sun 'n Fun or whatever. But from a purist aspect, WVR, a block-30 big mouth Viper can serve the -35 its own @ss on a to-go box. Your assessment that a -35 "can turn on a dime and leave change" is wholesale erroneous.
 
I'd submit that the 30:1 figure is to be taken with a grain of salt. Are these open source reporters privy to the TCTS debrief data? Were they there for kill removal? Obviously they were not, so they are getting this info from flag officers or their reps, who have something to gain. And if flag level leadership has taught me one thing during my career, it is that they are not good with math.....often "fuzzy" if you will. Just see the USN PERS O-4 selection result data given a couple years back. They posted an unheard of high selection rate %, and when questions were asked, it turned out they took (in the numerator) all the folks up for the promotion that year, and also secretly added all the folks who had already once been passed over but had a second look that year, and then divided the number by only the total folks who were getting their first look. Had everyone been selected, it would have been > 100% selection rate.........

Never forget that flag officers are there to lie to you.
 
hindsight2020 said:
Your assessment that a -35 "can turn on a dime and leave change" is wholesale erroneous.
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I watched it stand on its tail and wheelie around, literally pivot around and go the other way in a matter of feet it seemed. Sure, that a demo mode, but can your 15s and 16s do it?
 
Stan Cooper said:
I got my copy of Air&Space a couple of days ago and read the article. Looking at the teething problems (budgetary and technical) in the rear view mirror, based on the history of other bleeding edge projects that were ultimately great successes, F-35 development followed a pretty predictable trajectory with lots of naysayers along the way.
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Having been personally involved during my career with the development and introduction of the F-111, F-15, F-16, F-117, F-22, C-17 and a bit of F-14, all I can say is the simplest facts are the cost is always underestimated (and buggered up further by Congress), the performance of the “A” model is usually slightly less than promised, the schedule is optimistic (again greatly buggered up by Congress) and in the end, the results are the finest fighting machines in the world.

Cheers
 
Unit74 said:
I watched it stand on its tail and wheelie around, literally pivot around and go the other way in a matter of feet it seemed. Sure, that a demo mode, but can your 15s and 16s do it?
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Right, but is that particularly useful or effective in combat? Not sure slowing down to be able to pivot around on the tail is of much use in today’s modern warfare, but it’s a neat party trick!

Side note: I know nothing of the F-35 or similar fighter capabilities but I’d imagine the advantages it has over previous generation fighters are entirely of the electronic sort, and little to none of the actual flight performance.
 
SoonerAviator said:
Right, but is that particularly useful or effective in combat? Not sure slowing down to be able to pivot around on the tail is of much use in today’s modern warfare, but it’s a neat party trick!

Side note: I know nothing of the F-35 or similar fighter capabilities but I’d imagine the advantages it has over previous generation fighters are entirely of the electronic sort, and little to none of the actual flight performance.
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Well this pilot seems pretty impressed with the F-35’s ability to pivot at slow speeds and high AoA.

https://theaviationist.com/2016/03/...g-in-the-f-35-a-jsf-pilot-first-hand-account/
 
Velocity173 said:
Well this pilot seems pretty impressed with the F-35’s ability to pivot at slow speeds and high AoA.

https://theaviationist.com/2016/03/...g-in-the-f-35-a-jsf-pilot-first-hand-account/
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Again, I know next to zero about it, but I’d just imagine that the opportunities to get into a close-range dogfight are increasingly small. The majority of the engagements I’ve read about are BVR and involve the release of weapons before the enemy ever knows you’re there. I’m sure for those unlikely events where you end up within visual range with a threat, the higher AoA and maneuverability of the 35 could make a difference in combat performance, but it’s one of those things that may not really come into much use due to the nature of how modern warfare seems to progress.

It doesn’t make the 35 any less impressive though.
 
Stan Cooper said:
If it's a turkey, why are eleven countries (June 2018) besides the U.S. scrambling to field them?
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Probably because there’s foreign aid dollars that are specifically required to be spent on F-35 foreign military sales purchases.
 
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SoonerAviator said:
Right, but is that particularly useful or effective in combat? Not sure slowing down to be able to pivot around on the tail is of much use in today’s modern warfare, but it’s a neat party trick!

Side note: I know nothing of the F-35 or similar fighter capabilities but I’d imagine the advantages it has over previous generation fighters are entirely of the electronic sort, and little to none of the actual flight performance.
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Im not looking at it from a combat perspective. I look at it from an aviation perspective.
 
Stan Cooper said:
If it's a turkey, why are eleven countries (June 2018) besides the U.S. scrambling to field them?

https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/06/22/the-countries-where-f-35-sales-are-taking-off/

U.K. 138
Turkey 100 (might be canceled by the U.S.)
Australia 100
Italy 90
Canada 88
Norway 52
Israel 50
Japan 42
South Korea 40
The Netherlands 37
Denmark 27
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Because it’s the only stealthy airplane available for purchase. Other than the Netherlands and the Dutch no one is fully replacing their Air Force with it.

It’s a good tool for some specific missions. It’s not a full-spectrum replacement.
 
Velocity173 said:
Well this pilot seems pretty impressed with the F-35’s ability to pivot at slow speeds and high AoA.

https://theaviationist.com/2016/03/...g-in-the-f-35-a-jsf-pilot-first-hand-account/
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Dolby grew up in the F16 where you can’t fly slow or at high AOA so it makes sense that he’s impressed. The thing can hold a lot of AOA and remain in control but the whole thing is going straight down when doing that. It doesn’t have the power of a Raptor (or vectored thrust) that translate AOA into a winner in a BFM engagement.
 
"against multiple A-4's"... pretty impressive for an F-4... :)

The F-35 is never going to be able to brag about dogfighting, why try? As I said before - it's a tool for a few missions. Air supremacy isn't one of them. It doesn't need to be able to dogfight as long as we have airplanes that can.
 
EvilEagle said:
"against multiple A-4's"... pretty impressive for an F-4... :)

The F-35 is never going to be able to brag about dogfighting, why try? As I said before - it's a tool for a few missions. Air supremacy isn't one of them. It doesn't need to be able to dogfight as long as we have airplanes that can.
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Your opinion, please: What situations would you prefer your -15 over the -35 for A/A combat? Wouldn't the stealth and sensor attributes put you in the catbird seat in most situations other than a visual dogfight?
 
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