Posted on 06/30/2015 5:50:20 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
A test pilot has some very, very bad news about the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The pricey new stealth jet can’t turn or climb fast enough to hit an enemy plane during a dogfight or to dodge the enemy’s own gunfire, the pilot reported following a day of mock air battles back in January.
“The F-35 was at a distinct energy disadvantage,” the unnamed pilot wrote in a scathing five-page brief that War Is Boring has obtained. The brief is unclassified but is labeled “for official use only.”
The test pilot’s report is the latest evidence of fundamental problems with the design of the F-35 — which, at a total program cost of more than a trillion dollars, is history’s most expensive weapon.
The U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps — not to mention the air forces and navies of more than a dozen U.S. allies — are counting on the Lockheed Martin-made JSF to replace many if not most of their current fighter jets.
And that means that, within a few decades, American and allied aviators will fly into battle in an inferior fighter — one that could get them killed … and cost the United States control of the air.
The fateful test took place on Jan. 14, 2015, apparently within the Sea Test Range over the Pacific Ocean near Edwards Air Force Base in California. The single-seat F-35A with the designation “AF-02” — one of the older JSFs in the Air Force — took off alongside a two-seat F-16D Block 40, one of the types of planes the F-35 is supposed to replace.
The two jets would be playing the roles of opposing fighters in a pretend air battle, which the Air Force organized specifically to test out the F-35’s prowess as a close-range dogfighter in an air-to-air tangle involving high “angles of attack,” or AoA, and “aggressive stick/pedal inputs.”
In other words, the F-35 pilot would fly his jet hard, turning and maneuvering in order to “shoot down” the F-16, whose pilot would be doing his own best to evade and kill the F-35.
“The evaluation focused on the overall effectiveness of the aircraft in performing various specified maneuvers in a dynamic environment,” the F-35 tester wrote. “This consisted of traditional Basic Fighter Maneuvers in offensive, defensive and neutral setups at altitudes ranging from 10,000 to 30,000 feet.”
The F-35 was flying “clean,” with no weapons in its bomb bay or under its wings and fuselage. The F-16, by contrast, was hauling two bulky underwing drop tanks, putting the older jet at an aerodynamic disadvantage.
But the JSF’s advantage didn’t actually help in the end. The stealth fighter proved too sluggish to reliably defeat the F-16, even with the F-16 lugging extra fuel tanks. “Even with the limited F-16 target configuration, the F-35A remained at a distinct energy disadvantage for every engagement,” the pilot reported.
The defeated flier’s five-page report is a damning litany of aerodynamic complaints targeting the cumbersome JSF. “Insufficient pitch rate.” “Energy deficit to the bandit would increase over time.” “The flying qualities in the blended region (20–26 degrees AoA) were not intuitive or favorable.”
The F-35 jockey tried to target the F-16 with the stealth jet’s 25-millimeter cannon, but the smaller F-16 easily dodged. “Instead of catching the bandit off-guard by rapidly pull aft to achieve lead, the nose rate was slow, allowing him to easily time his jink prior to a gun solution,” the JSF pilot complained.
And when the pilot of the F-16 turned the tables on the F-35, maneuvering to put the stealth plane in his own gunsight, the JSF jockey found he couldn’t maneuver out of the way, owing to a “lack of nose rate.”
The F-35 pilot came right out and said it — if you’re flying a JSF, there’s no point in trying to get into a sustained, close turning battle with another fighter. “There were not compelling reasons to fight in this region.” God help you if the enemy surprises you and you have no choice but to turn.
The JSF tester found just one way to win a short-range air-to-air engagement — by performing a very specific maneuver. “Once established at high AoA, a prolonged full rudder input generated a fast enough yaw rate to create excessive heading crossing angles with opportunities to point for missile shots.”
But there’s a problem — this sliding maneuver bleeds energy fast. “The technique required a commitment to lose energy and was a temporary opportunity prior to needing to regain energy … and ultimately end up defensive again.” In other words, having tried the trick once, an F-35 pilot is out of options and needs to get away quick.
And to add insult to injury, the JSF flier discovered he couldn’t even comfortably move his head inside the radar-evading jet’s cramped cockpit. “The helmet was too large for the space inside the canopy to adequately see behind the aircraft.” That allowed the F-16 to sneak up on him.
In the end, the F-35 — the only new fighter jet that America and most of its allies are developing — is demonstrably inferior in a dogfight with the F-16, which the U.S. Air Force first acquired in the late 1970s.
The test pilot explained that he has also flown 1980s-vintage F-15E fighter-bombers and found the F-35 to be “substantially inferior” to the older plane when it comes to managing energy in a close battle.
I assume (hope) its the entire program cost.
Mr. Rogers,
No, it is not. You drop them only if you need to do so. Otherwise you bring them back and reuse them.
My apologies I was generalizing in my statements. Yes absolutely if you don’t have too you don’t drop them. Bring them back and reuse them. You are correct. I should have been more detailed and said:
As a pilot if you get into a combat situation that dictates the need to streamline the airframe then yes it is normal to drop the tanks. It is not normal procedure to say okay they are dry so I drop them. Hence the word combat in my comment.
“Hangar Queen”
Haven’t heard that in years but every Squadron had at least one! :D
In some messy scenarios with multiple countries as allies, neutrals and semi-adversaries, all of whom may have aircraft in the skies at the same time, makes the Beyond Visual Range firing of missiles a problem. Certainly IFF pings and codes make mistakes less likely, but we already shot down one civilian airliner over the Gulf. Fortunately, the owners weren’t close friends.
So, there are times where conceivably there is no option but to get in closer than you might otherwise want to.
Oldplayer
ya....but it used to refer to an airframe......
Wikipedia (ha ha ha) has an interesting article. FWIW. We've probably spent more than $1trillion on the entire program, by now, including operations and maintenance. Flying is expensive; JP8 isn't cheap. I'm not arguing that the program has been well run, or that we're getting our money's worth ... that's a big discussion. But some folks, including possibly the author of the OP, have displayed a nasty habit of misrepresenting DOD program costs, and if one doesn't read carefully one can be led to believe things that aren't true.
How many Toyota pickups can it take out per minute?
Absolutely positively WRONG.
I’m pretty sure that the first kill by an F-15 was a gun kills by an IDF pilot over Lebanon.
In the Gilf war an A-10 Warthog shot down an Iraqi Helicoptor.
I’ve also read an account of a Su-27 shooting down an Mig 27 in the Ethiopian Eritrean conflict of 1998.
Pilots are all top notch at that level. Suspect the F-35 had the pilot edge, at least rank, if there was one. The F-35 is a multi-role flat assed expensive dud of all duds and yes I am a David Axe fan. Interesting that the Chinese version has two engines.
The TomCat/Phoenix combo was only good against incoming bombers (read: relatively unmaneuverable targets). It did not work so well against high-energy fighters at anything near the Phoenix's touted distance. There is a good reason the Phoenix was discontinued.
Additionally, nowadays there are long-range missiles that are very effective at the limits of their range. The AMRAAM (D version) is the best long-range AAM the US currently has, and is significantly better than the Phoenix ever could be. Looking outside the US, the Meteor BVRAAM by the Europeans is the best long-range AAM available in the world today, has a range that rivals the Phoenix, but more importantly has a pK (probability of kill) that is magnitudes higher than anything the Phoenix could even think of. It is not about range but rather the pK and the type of engagement envelop a missile has. The Phoenix was a great missile at its given task of engaging incoming Russian bombers at the very edge of engagement distance of the anti-ship cruise missiles the bombers may have been trying to shoot down the carrier with - and at that specific job the Phoenix was not bad - but as a universal AAM it was really bad at engaging something faster/more nimber like a fighter.
Missiles like the Meteor have the range, the energy and high pK.
Only matters if you really think a good driver in a VW should be able to beat a bad driver in a Ferrari. It should have been a turkey shoot.
I would expect nothing less given the current state of our military. Specialization and real engineering is so 20th Century. If you believe it hard enough, you can turn a man into a woman and perform brain surgery with a Swiss army knife!
It's difficult for me to post on any thread relating to the F-35. For one, I always strive to cut through bias and evaluate something on merit (based on available information, of course), and that is definitely a difficult task when it comes to the F-35.
Why?
Well, in quick-point form:
1) The F-35 as a great plane: The F-35 will 100% guaranteed be a great plane, but with a very important caveat. That the US continues to engage the countries it has fought against militarily in the last three and a half decades. The likes of Grenada, Panama, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia, Libya, etc. In essence, nations that really do not have advanced technological ability (or even anything close to parity - e.g. B-1B bombers sending JDAMs against Taliban positions in what may as well have been evil magic to the Tallies), have a qualitative mismatch (e.g. the NATO forces in the Balkans), have a quantitative mismatch (e.g. the Allied forces, which had many countries including little Niger, against Iraq), a total dominance of situational awareness (looking at Iraq again, the Iraqi MiGs didn't even have radar-warning-receivers, and they were up against allied AWACS), proper battle strategy, etc etc etc. If the US/West continues to engage such countries, then the F-35 will have a superlative record and will be an amazing plane. Goodness, even an upgraded F-4 Phantom would be a wonderful platform in such a case! Thus, that is the F-35 as a great fighter, and as I mentioned, I 100% guarantee that as long as that caveat is maintained.
2) The F-35 as a great fighter that was betrayed by reality: What do I mean here? Well, simply put, the JSF project that gave birth to the F-35 has to be looked at as originally envisioned. What was the original plan? Well, you would have the ATF (Advanced Tactical Fighter, which gave birth to the YF-22/23 competition that was won by the F-22) breaking down doors and destroying any advanced opposition, and the ATF would be supported by the JSF (Joint Strike Fighter, which gave birth to the X-32/35 competition that was won by the F-35). Thus, it was envisioned to have hundreds of ATFs supported by thousands of JSFs. Reality? The F-22 numbers were decimated from over 800 to less than 187 (since one crashed), and now the JSF (F-35) has to cover roles that were intended for the ATF (F-22) such as air-dominance. Now, there is a reason the ATF had a long list of attributes requested ...such as supercruise, high stealth, maneuverability etc, because it was meant to be the absolute best bar none. The JSF, on the other hand, was to have relatively good stealth, a great sensor suite, and be able to support the ATF. Now, the JSF project also has to be the ATF project as there are not enough F-22s. This means that the F-35 is being judged against something it was not meant to cover had reality not changed ...it is like a top NFL team being asked to play at the Soccer World Cup. They can do the job, but they will never be super.
3) The F-35 as a dog: Finally, the F-35 as a dog. There are two ways of looking at this:
a) the first is the program itself, and I will channel a FReeper called PukinDog who (a DECADE AGO) listed all the issues the F-35 is facing today. The program has been a failure in terms of meeting its targets ranging from systems/avionics to weight management. And then there is budget, which is sad considering one of the reasons the F-22 was cancelled was cost ... Also, apparently they have had to shift their judgement metrics several times for the F-35 to 'pass,' and I suspect that the fact the (clean configuration) F-35 was fighting against a F-16 with fuel tanks attached was another example of 'fudging' the test. Anyways, the program has encountered a lot of difficulty, which is something many military systems go through ...but the F-35 (as opposed to other systems, like the Abrams tank, Seawolf sub, and even F-22, that had difficulties as well) is having its difficulties in fundamental areas, which is the main difference from the three I have mentioned. That is troubling.
b) the second issue is how the F-35 will fare against top-level global threats. I am not talking about the usual Iraq/Afghanistan/Libya hammering, but rather a war against a near-peer adversary that actually has working sh!t. For example, a war with China or Russia. Those are countries that will have working systems and that have been working towards an anti-US solution. Now, I know on FR many are quick to say that the US would 'crush' China/Russia (and I believe the US would win btw, just that it would not be easy), but ask yourself if that is the case then why is the US so hesitant at 'smacking' the likes of Iran, north Korea and Pakistan? Yes, I know ...they have nuclear weapons would be the most likely response (even though it ignores that China/Russia have more than those three countries). But Iran doesn't have nuclear weapons currently, so why not go in and 'smack' them? Because they have a military that the US could quickly dismantle, but at cost. It is never as simple as what people in forums think! The Gulf War turkey shoot that had the Allied forces hammer Saddam's forces still left 75 Allied aircraft (including 52 fixed wing aircraft) shot down, and that was against an Iraq that had a SAM system that was created to prevent a small-scale attack from Iran and/or Israel. Now, imagine the Chinese integrated air-defense system. Simply put, the only fighter jet currently known to be flying that can survive a Chinese IADS is the F-22, and even then it would be at the edge of the IADS engagement envelop. Sure, war is never about one asset ...it is an integrated system, and the US military machine would have launched hundreds of tomahawks to degrade the IADS, launched all sorts of cyber attacks to cripple the network, etc etc etc ...if we know this China knows this as well. It would never be that easy, and the F-35 acting as both JSF and ATF would have a hard time to put it mildly.
Thus, what's my conclusion?
Simply that the F-35 was intended to be a great plane as originally envisioned, it has been let down by reality (cancellation of continued ATF production) and rising costs/weight/timelines. However, even though the F-35 would have a difficult time in Russian or Chinese airspace, it WILL BE a great fighter due to the simple reason that it will be used against the likes of Libya, Afgahnistan and Iraq, countries that at most need a B-52H, and at worst need an F-15 with supporting F-16 Wild Weasel support and an occasional smattering of Tomahawks.
Thus, the F-35 will go down as a great fighter.
A trillion dollars. For an airplane.
just think 117 of them = the natl debt. Maybe insure them and crash voila no longer a natl debt. /extreme sarcasm
omg
I read somewhere that if you had enough time, the best way to evade an enemy missile is to make 2 sharp turns (I forget if you had to turn in any specific direction)
Probably not too often would you have enough time I guess.
I did see an interesting review of the (much talked about) US/India exercise done some years ago. While most people were yapping about the SU-30MKI (the Indians touting how it 'defeated' the American F-15s, and the Americans touting how they could easily time the Flanker's end-of-thrust vectoring envelop to come in for a gunkill based on experience practicing against the F-22's TVC), the real but ignored story from that was the use of jammers to squeeze the engagement envelope of radar-based AAMs to the point where both planes were withing visual/IIR-missile range. Not just jamming the plane radars, but the missiles as well. Now, I know there are missile homing modes that simply shift to home-on-jam, but it was very interesting to see how Indian MiG-21s fitted with Israeli-jammers managed to get within WVR of the F-15s, and that it was those Israeli-specced-jammer nigh-obsolete Fishbeds that gave the Eagle pilots that toughest time ...not the Flankers.
Which is one of three reasons I have as to why the thought that air-war against a near-peer adversary will consist of long-distance BVR shots is very wrong.
Yah...I miss the comments by PukinDog also.
Can it raise Muslims self-esteem, though?
Reading the comments here is like stepping into a time machine. The very same arguments used to defend the F-35 are the same ones used to develop the pre-Vietnam era fighters and bombers... which turned out to be so incredibly wrong. I could transpose some verbatim (”Who needs guns? Never let them get that close!”) and no one would know the difference.
What people never take into account is the POLITICS of war. The Navy F-4s in VN needed to be retro-fitted with guns (via gun pods) because they wee ordered not to shoot until they could visually identify the target aircraft, totally negating the stand-off advantage they had. With an obama at the helm, is it so hard to conceive of a combat situation where our pilots would be under the same restrictions?
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