Posted on 02/07/2017 4:23:27 PM PST by bkopto
Exercise Red Flag at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada is considered one of the most realistic and challenging aviation warfare exercises, and pilots from this year's event say the Air Force's F-35A exceeded expectations by dominating the air space and improving the lethality of other legacy aircraft.
It's stellar performance is a major victory for a war plane that's been criticized for its high costs and plagued with several development setbacks.
Running from January 23 to February 10, this year's Red Flag involves more threats to pilots than ever before, including surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), radar jamming equipment, and an increased number of red air, or mock enemy aircraft.
Against the ramped-up threats, the F-35A only lost one aircraft for every 15 aggressors killed, according to Aviation Week.
The F-35 Lightning II's advanced avionics software was the star of the show, as multiple F-35s successfully compiled data into a detailed layout of the battlefield with each individual threat pinpointed.
The stealthy aircraft could then slip into weak spots in the defensive layout and take out SAM targets, opening up the space for follow-on forces of legacy fighters. Even when the F-35s ran out of munitions, F-22 and fourth-generation fighter pilots wanted the aircraft to remain in the combat zone, soaking up data and porting target info to the older fighters.
(Excerpt) Read more at popularmechanics.com ...
And I much rather prefer a twin-engine fighter jet, not single engine.
Of course, a Piper Cub could win, if the rules were properly drafted. So I don’t know that I’d read much into this one way or the other.
We are just east of Eglin AFB. Last night 3 F35’s were flying very low circling continually the area. It was awesome watching these aircraft flying over. The 10 o’clock weatherman showed lots of radar images south of Panama City which he said was not weather but military related. He said it might be chaff. They returned in line about an hour and a half later.
Agree ..... somebody is gun decking the numbers .... I pray its true that the F35 is just that good but truth ‘n trust in government contractor liars is a one on a scale of one to ten. Come a day we’ll be putting AIM-120 AMRRAM’s on a kite we will be so desperate for CAP domination ......
The F-35 won 15 one-on-one encounters. I wonder how well it would have done in a single 15-on-1 encounter. Particularly considering its limited internal missile capacity.
It's been working in F-16s since 1977.
Was this the mission directive? Or the result of a fair competition?
As I often explain, it is data overload that gets pilots, not information overload. It is the mental gymnastics that it takes to turn data into information that is difficult to do while people are trying to kill you. Properly presented information takes less than a second to process. Putting the “big board” in the jet was my claim to the biggest force multiplier.
https://www.dvidshub.net/news/222510/f-35a-proving-its-worth-red-flag-combat-exercise
Actually at Red Flag, the F-22’s did the air to air with the F-35’s being a bomb truck.
With just 2 JDAM’s in the internal storage...
I'm guessing a high degree of navigation/countermeasures prep/threat assessment, etc., is automated now?
The F-22 seems to not get discussed much. I know they had the OBOGS system problem that is now fixed.. After that, it seems to not get much face time. They’re not heading for the F-117 underground cemetery are they?
Sensory overload is caused by (multi-)sensory inputs saturating the reasoning centers of the brain. One major cause, in pilots, is that one of the dominant senses, sight, is blocked or distorted by the design of the cockpit and the brain tries to synthetically fill in the gaps. BTW it does in regular sight also, just not in such a dynamic environment. The HUD was the first step in recognizing how to lighten the load on a pilot. The F-15 and F-16 pretty much show that works really well.
The F-35 does it even better by allowing 3-D visualization of the battlefield to the pilot allowing him to see anything everywhere he looks. He also has visual cues overlaid on everything else in his field of vision including virtual switches. This facilitates activation of a countermeasure simply by touching a projected point in space rather than seeking a switch on a panel or HOTAS control.
The integrated man-machine allows decisions and actions to be executed to the situation rather than hardware location. These features unload the pilot's world rather than overload it.
For example, a pilot can see a target, identified by type and aspect of relative flight to his plane. He can touch the projected target and select, arm, lock on and launch a missile then leave it to it's own terminal guidance while he looks for the next bad guy.
Thanks for the info.
With so many dollars at stake, it is highly probable that the results were, er, gently massaged to fit the narrative.
Even when the F-35s ran out of munitions, F-22 and fourth-generation fighter pilots wanted the aircraft to remain in the combat zone, soaking up data and porting target info to the older fighters.
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The F-35 is going to be a great, though expensive, AWACS replacement.
Our perception of government contractors have been shaped mostly by the media and congress. Both institutions are rated with the lowest levels of credibility in the eyes of the public.
Think independently and do your own research and you may find there are other "truths" to be found.
For example, a pilot can see a target, identified by type and aspect of relative flight to his plane. He can touch the projected target and select, arm, lock on and launch a missile then leave it to it’s own terminal guidance while he looks for the next bad guy.
...
That sounds cool. The next step is to do it with an unmanned aircraft for a lot less money.
That can be done theoretically but for now, the most powerful computer in a fighting jet is still the pilot.
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