Is the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter the New F-4?

Real Clear Defense ^ | September 3, 2014 | Michael Peck

[C19fan]

The jet fighter can’t maneuver, the critics say. It’s based on a wrongheaded concept. It relies on unproved technologies. It’s a one-size-fits-all jet for the Air Force, Navy and Marines, and yet it doesn't really meet any of their needs.

Is this Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter I’m describing? No, it’s actually the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II, the ubiquitous fighter-bomber, reconnaissance and radar-hunting aircraft that formed the backbone of U.S., NATO and Israeli air power in the 1960s and 1970s. More than 50 years later, the Phantom still flies, as evident when Syrian gunners downed a Turkish RF-4 recon plane last year.

While the Phantom still has many fans, it also had quite a few detractors. And many of those complaints are eerily similar to the criticisms now aimed at the Joint Strike Fighter. Is the F-4 a guide to what we can expect from the F-35?

[North Coast Conservative]

The best view of an F4 was in burners, going away from you AFTER it had dropped it’s iron bombs or napalm from BEHIND you, guaranteeing that the bastards in front of you were not resolute as they used to be.

[DAC21]

“Absolutely LOVE the F-4!”

John McCain not so much.

[SeeSharp]

John McCain not so much.

Didn't he fly an F-105 Thud?

[Fred Hayek]

John McCain flew the A-4 Skyhawk.

[LifePath]

McCain flew the A-4 Skyhawk. Mostly he crashed the A-4 Skyhawk.

[Old Student]

I loved them, too. Never got to work on one after tech school, wound up on the F-111D instead. Did have a favorite t-shirt, now long gone, with a pic of an F-4E and “World’s largest distributor of MIG parts” on it. ;)

The F-111 was truly an abortion, but I remember teething problems with the F-15 & F-16, as well. I personally rewrote “Camptown Race Track” to say “Nellis flight line, three miles long, do dah. -16’s crashing all day long, oh my do dah day!” back in the day. It wasn’t really that bad, but sometimes looked it from my point of view as a photographer there at Nellis, late 70’s to early 80’s.

Old Student.
WRM, MSgt, USAF(Ret.)

[Portcall24]

Great photo...thanks.

[doorgunner69]

That said, it would have had a much better record as a fighter, if the AIM-7 Sparrow missile wasn’t such a POS during the Vietnam war. The failings of that missile made most encounters a knife fight, where the MiG 17s and 19s were allowed to maximize their strengths.

PLS do not omit the idiotic decision to get rid of the internal gun.

Those Sparrows were a POS. The birds we launched were usually without long range A-A capability because the avionics guys could not get the Sparrows and radar to align. Bombs had to be dropped anyway, and we knew the Sidewinders would work.

[Rodamala]

Decade after decade, design after design, it's the same old, same old.

Those Wright Flyers were DEATHTRAPS, I tell ya!

[RaceBannon]

[RaceBannon]

the A-6 could carry 24 500 lb bombs

32 if you took off the landing gear covers

the B-52 carried 124 I think?

The F-11 carried 74...

MOS 7242 1977-1981

[GBA]

Those Wright Flyers were DEATHTRAPS, I tell ya!

You got that right. I'm not getting on one:

Two men were killed on Saturday when they made a forced landing in a replica Wright Model B Flyer in a rural Ohio field.

[doorgunner69]

Ah, VMFA-323, The Death Rattlers. My last fixed wing squadron before I transferred to a rotary wing group.

That bird is far too clean and pretty to be one of the beasts I humped ordnance onto in RVN. Looks like a different version too without the white radome.

[doorgunner69]

Never had one of our F-4s configured that way, but apparently they could be set up with a MER outboard and TER inboard on each wing, with another MER on the centerline for a total of 24. Our planes always flew with wingtanks outboard, just heard about the mondo bomber setup.

The power to get it into the air was certainly there.

[Oztrich Boy]

The F-35 is really more of a stealthy A-7 than F-4.

actually