[GeronL]

readiness??

They told us its not even close to ready a couple of weeks ago when F-16’s kicked its rear.

[NormsRevenge]

Im going Sgt. Schultze here.. and then some.. ;-)

[ProtectOurFreedom]

That was my first thought, too. The explanation two weeks ago was the software wasn’t ready. Must have some crack programmers.

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

I'd be careful of those media stories, the press has been utterly against every new weapon system since Vietnam. Buried in that story is that the F-35 was flying with "restrictions" (didn't say what they were) against the F-16. At one point ACC claimed their F-15s could intercept the SR-71 (one got a half-second missile lock when the F-15 squadron was given the exact flight path and time it would be overhead). I'm not a big F-35 guy, I'm just saying that most of what you read in the media is crap. Media military "experts" are somebody put into that job because that desk was vacant when they hired on.

The thing with the F-35: if you're in a visual-range turning dogfight with an F-16, you're probably screwing up badly (or restricted by an exercise). The F-35 gets info fed to it from AWACS so that it doesn't need to turn on its radar. Its mission is to use its stealth, come in high and fast, and fire a missile that the enemy doesn't perceive until his jet explodes.

The CAS tank-killer mission is completely assinine and will never be flown. When aircraft are justified before congress, they have to promise to do everything and they have to "prove" through testing that they can do everything. When they can't, the media just rips them apart, which is exactly what has been going on. Using this platform to fly the A-10's mission is a complete joke. If it could, the Marines would've slapped a 30mm gun pod on the AV-8 Harrier and had been flying that mission since the early 1980s. The Air Force tried that on the F-16 in the early '80s and the results were horrid, as any normal person would expect.

[Yossarian]

They told us its not even close to ready a couple of weeks ago when F-16’s kicked its rear.

For the F-35A (Air Force) and F-35B (Navy carrier-ready), yes, losing a fight to the F-16 is a big problem.

For the F-35B (Marines), it's replacing the AV-8 Harrier, for which the term "losing a fight" too often meant that the plane got unstable and killed its pilot. The F-35B is a too-expensive but far-better alternative.

[minnesota_bound]

Declare all you want. When a 40 year old plane beats the latest jet they outta go back to the drawing boards.