New aircraft, tanks, etc.. in many instances have issues. That’s a known fact the Osprey or Bradley.
While it is true that the F-35 is not the best dog fighter compared to F-22, F-18, F-15, F-16, etc... The Pentagon believes that dog fights in the future will not be the case.
Honestly, how many dog fights has U.S. Aircraft engaged with other nations since Vietnam? It’s very few compared to a fighter-bomber attack. Probably because we always attack enemy Air-Forces first in order to control the air.
The F-35 is a replacement of several fighter jets roll in battle such as the Steath Fighter, the Marine Harrier, the F-15 E and theolder F-18s.
Bottom line is this. It’s A LOT cheaper to maintain one jet vs. a variety of jets is the thinking.... Plus the F-35 has much less maintence time compared to flight hours with the older jets. Thus, you can run more missions.
What people need to ask is how come the Air Force, Navy and Marines all want this jet? Do they believe the Generals in all three branches are wrong.? For the record too the F-35 has been being pushed since the late 1980s and early 1990s. So it’s not just recent Generals.
"Dog fighting" refers to a close air battle after the two forces merge (meet head on). The thinking now is that missiles are good enough that large parts of the forces will be destroyed before the merge. One hopes that US technology will mean that the enemy bears the vast brunt of it.
Even closer in, modern IR missiles have a very wide field of regard. The AIM-9X (current Sidewinder) can also be cued to turn and find the target after launch. That means the nose of the aircraft no longer needs to point at the adversary to fire, meaning turn performance isn't nearly as important as it used to be. BTW, these IR missiles track the emissions from the body of the aircraft, and work from any direction, not just from behind.
Even the Sidewinder has an effective range of over ten miles. That is way beyond conventional "dogfighting".
” ... it is true that the F-35 is not the best dog fighter compared to F-22, F-18, F-15, F-16, etc...”
I don’t believe the F-22 is a dog fighter, either. It’s billed as an “air superiority” craft. With it’s stealth and long-range, air-to-air missile capability, the advantage of the F-22 is that it can stand off and take out enemy aircraft before it is “seen.”
Ok. Honestly, then, how many times have needed hi-tech, semi-stealthy air-to-mud jet aircraft since Vietnam?
Wouldn’t we better off with LOTS of armored, close support crop-dusters flown by Sergeants, instead?
“The Pentagon believes that dog fights in the future will not be the case.”
The Pentagon made that mistake before when they refused to put a gun on the F-4 Phantom. They thought it could avoid a dogfight by standing off and firing missiles. Too bad that practical reality intruded on their lofty theories.
The plan for the F-35 is that it’s supposed to standoff from an enemy and launch missiles at it at long range.
So they forgot that “No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy.”
Let’s hope that the next version of the F-22 is equipped with the weapons systems from the F-35 so our fighter pilots have the absolute best all-around fighter possible.