The F-35 Discussion Topic (No Holds Barred II)

Stargazer

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Beautiful Master Modeler F-35B desktop model:


http://www.ebay.fr/itm/Lockheed-Martin-STOVL-F35B-USMC-1-48-Scale-Desktop-Model-/380812048730
 

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I have one - looks good on my model shelf....

Only odd thing is the lack of landing gear, would think they would have to be down in VTOL mode.

Enjoy the Day! Mark
 
"New stealth fighter is dead meat in an air battle"

Sure to cause angry indignation and serious indigestion for the F-16.net F-35 fanboys, and a furious "this is just an opinion piece" comment from some other guys, but isn't this report just the common sense shoe that many knew was going to drop?

https://medium.com/war-is-boring/test-pilot-admits-the-f-35-can-t-dogfight-cdb9d11a875

Below is Aviation Week's take on the same encounter:

F-35 Tested Against F-16 In Basic Fighter Maneuvers


Guy Norris and Amy Butler Aviation Week & Space Technology Apr 2, 2015

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter has been flown in air-to-air combat maneuvers against F-16s for the first time and based on the results of these and earlier flight-envelope evaluations, test pilots say the aircraft can be cleared for greater agility as a growth option.

Although the F-35 is designed primarily for attack rather than air combat, U.S. Air Force and Lockheed Martin test pilots say the availability of potential margin for additional maneuverability is a testament to the aircraft's recently proven overall handling qualities and basic flying performance. "The door is open to provide a little more maneuverability," says Lockheed Martin F-35 site lead test pilot David "Doc" Nelson.

The operational maneuvers were flown by Nelson in AF-2, the primary Flight Sciences loads and flutter evaluation aircraft, and one of nine F-35s used by the Edwards AFB-based 412th Test wing for developmental testing (DT). The F-35 Integrated Test Force at Edwards has six F-35As, two F-35Bs and a single F-35C dedicated to DT work, as well as a further set of aircraft allotted to the Joint Operational Test Team. Work is underway as part of efforts to clear the final system development and demonstration (SDD) maneuvering envelopes on the way to initial operational capability (IOC). The U.S. Marine Corps F-35B IOC is targeted for later this year, the Air Force's F-35A in 2016, and the U.S. Navy's F-35C in 2019.

"When we did the first dogfight in January, they said, 'you have no limits,"' says Nelson. "It was loads monitoring, so they could tell if we ever broke something. It was a confidence builder for the rest of the fleet because there is no real difference structurally between AF-2 and the rest of the airplanes." AF-2 was the first F-35 to be flown to 9g+ and -3g, and to roll at design-load factor. The aircraft, which was also the first Joint Strike Fighter to be intentionally flown in significant airframe buffet at all angles of attack, was calibrated for inflight loads measurements prior to ferrying to Edwards in 2010.

The operational maneuver tests were conducted to see "how it would look like against an F-16 in the airspace," says Col. Rod "Trash" Cregier, F-35 program director. "It was an early look at any control laws that may need to be tweaked to enable it to fly better in future. You can definitely tweak it-that's the option."

"Pilots really like maneuverability, and the fact that the aircraft recovers so well from a departure allows us to say [to the designers of the flight control system laws], 'you don't have to clamp down so tight,'" says Nelson. Departure resistance was proven during high angle-of-attack (AOA) testing, which began in late 2012 with the aircraft pushing the nose to its production AOA limit of 50 deg. Subsequent AOA testing has pushed the aircraft beyond both the positive and negative maximum command limits, including intentionally putting the aircraft out of control in several configurations ranging from "clean" wings to tests with open weapons-bay doors. Testing eventually pushed the F-35 to a maximum of 110 deg. AOA.

An "aggressive and unique" approach has been taken to the high AOA, or "high alpha" testing, says Nelson. "Normally, test programs will inch up on max alpha, and on the F-22 it took us 3-4 months to get to max alpha. On this jet, we did it in four days. We put a spin chute on the back, which is normal for this sort of program, and then we put the airplane out of control and took our hands off the controls to see if it came back. We actually tweaked the flight control system with an onboard flight test aid to allow it to go out of control, because it wouldn't by itself. Then we drove the center of gravity back and made it the worst-case configuration on the outside with weapons bay doors and put the aircraft in a spin." The aircraft has been put into spins with yaw rates up to 60 deg./ sec., equal to a complete turn every 6 sec. "That's pretty good. But we paddled off the flight-test aid and it recovered instantly," he says.

Pilots also tested the ability of the F-35 to recover from a deep-stall in which it was pushed beyond the maximum AoA command limit by activating a manual pitch limiter (MPL) override similar to the alpha limiter in the F-16. "It's not something an operational pilot would do, but the angle of attack went back and, with the center of gravity way back aft, it would not pitch over, but it would pitch up. So it got stuck at 60 or 70 deg. alpha, and it was as happy as could be. There was no pitching moment to worry about, and as soon as I let go of the MPL, it would come out," Nelson says.

Following consistent recoveries, the test team opted to remove the spin chute for the rest of the test program. "The airplane, with no spin chute, had demonstrated the ability to recover from the worst-case departure, so we felt very confident, and that has been proven over months of high alpha testing," says Nelson. "It also satisfied those at the Joint Program Office who said spin chute on the back is not production-representative and produces aerodynamic qualities that are not right." Although there are additional test points ahead where the spin chute is scheduled to be reattached for departure resistance with various weapons loads, the test team is considering running through the points without it.

With the full flight envelope now opened to an altitude of 50,000 ft., speeds of Mach 1.6/700 KCAS and loads of 9g, test pilots also say improvements to the flight control system have rendered the transonic roll-off (TRO) issue tactically irrelevant. Highlighted as a "program concern" in the Defense Department's Director of Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E) 2014 report, initial flight tests showed that all three F-35 variants experienced some form of wing drop in high-speed turns associated with asymmetrical movements of shock waves. However, TRO "has evolved into a non-factor," says Nelson, who likens the effect to a momentary "tug" on one shoulder harness. "You have to pull high-g to even find it." The roll-off phenomena exhibits itself as "less than 10 deg./sec. for a fraction of a second. We have been looking for a task it affects and we can't find one."

So can these two reports be reconciled?
 
On one hand you have verifiable sources and on the other you have a story with more holes in it than a block of Swiss cheese (F-16 "snuck" up on a EODAS equipped F-35, had to turn the plane and his head to aim missile, AF-02 is at Block 2B/3i, primarily a "guns" exercise, etc).


Care to guess which way I am leaning?
 
SpudmanWP said:
On one hand you have verifiable sources and on the other you have a story with more holes in it than a block of Swiss cheese (F-16 "snuck" up on a EODAS equipped F-35, had to turn the plane and his head to aim missile, AF-02 is at Block 2B/3i, primarily a "guns" exercise, etc).


Care to guess which way I am leaning?
And they get the 'report' five months after the exercise 'leaked' to a tiny traffic defense site with a reputation of writing F-35 hit pieces, written by David Axe a specialist in F-35 hit pieces. Care to guess which way I am leaning?
 
CxxTxx said:
"New stealth fighter is dead meat in an air battle"

Sure to cause angry indignation and serious indigestion for the F-16.net F-35 fanboys, and a furious "this is just an opinion piece" comment from some other guys, but isn't this report just the COMMON SENSE SHOE THAT WE ALL KNEW was going to drop?

"The unnamed pilot". BAHHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA! Wow, what a massive troll.
 
Question:


If the 5-page report is an official one (labeled “for official use only.”)... why withhold the pilot's name, rank, and position?
 
SpudmanWP said:
Question:


If the 5-page report is an official one (labeled “for official use only.”)... why withhold the pilot's name, rank, and position?

Well if he published the name it would take about three seconds to run down the truth. ;)
 
So David Axe is betting his career on the authenticity of those five pages. Fair enough. Dave is a big boy.

On the other hand, what happens if the report is authentic?

Among the most interesting questions is what will be the fallback position for the F-16.net F-35 fanboys and the LockMart Defenders Brigade (TM)? Is it going to be: (1) "The F-35 was not designed nor intended to be a fighter. Think of the F-35 as an updated F-105 that can't fly nearly as fast, nearly as far, or carry nearly as much as the F-105." (2) "Aerial combat between aircraft is obsolete, so the fighter combat capabilities of the F-35 are irrelevant." (3) "The F-35 will optimize [technobabble] synchronistic [technobabble] in the battle space through [technobabble] sensor fusion [technobabble] oscillations."

??
 
CxxTxx said:
So David Axe is betting his career on the authenticity of those five pages. Fair enough. Dave is a big boy.

On the other hand, what happens if the report is authentic?

What happens if the planet gets hit by an asteroid tomorrow? Both equally likely. Quick question for ya. Do you think an F-16 could out maneuver a P-51?
 
sferrin said:
What happens if the planet gets hit by an asteroid tomorrow? Both equally likely. Quick question for ya. Do you think an F-16 could out maneuver a P-51?

Beats me. And I'm out. My apologies, but I still believe in quaint, old-fashioned concepts like the importance of the area rule and wing-loading in a design, the importance of range and inherent manueverability, and last but not least, Lanchester's equations, so I'm not qualified to be in this debate.

All my Best,

Ted
 
CxxTxx said:
sferrin said:
What happens if the planet gets hit by an asteroid tomorrow? Both equally likely. Quick question for ya. Do you think an F-16 could out maneuver a P-51?

Beats me. And I'm out. My apologies, but I still believe in quaint, old-fashioned concepts like the importance of the area rule and wing-loading in a design, the importance of range and inherent manueverability, and last but not least, Lanchester's equations, so I'm not qualified to be in this debate.

What makes you think these don't apply to the F-35?
 
The two articles are not incompatible, the Aviation Week article focuses heavily on flight envelope and control laws, the War is Boring article focus heavily on the experience of that dog-fight with the F-16. They can both be true and I was struck by the heavy focus on flight limit talk for the Aviation Week.

Your mileage may vary about how much you trust the War is Boring article, but as it references an obviously proprietary report, the article won't come with any identifying information. That's where the trust comes in.

(So, Spudman's comment is beside the point, of course War is Boring won't release the name, that'd get the pilot fired.... But Spudman knows this, hence his dishonest game. Just say what you think: this is a lie and there is no report.)
 
Why would it get the pilot fired, he already turned in the "official" report.
 
SpudmanWP said:
Why would it get the pilot fired, he already turned in the "official" report.

Anybody who leaked it is in trouble, from the beginning of the chain to the ending. Having your name there is just 'not done.' Haven't you read a million articles with 'senior government officials, speaking without authorization'?

Don't be obtuse: do you think such a report exists with that content or not? If you don't, say so.
 
And not only was AF-02 being flown clean, it was also, undoubtedly, being flown totally unarmed: with nothing in the bays, and without the weight of its 25 mm ammo...

If she's a dog flying in that configuration, in the real world, the F-35A is gunna be a dawwg.

Now I'm out.
 
Personally what makes me question the WIB article is the fact that they quote a total of about 7 statements, including just ~3 word phrases, from a 5 page report. Considering that the report refers to specific flight regimes "There were not compelling reasons to fight in this region.”, it seems to me that WIB are leaving quite a lot of the report out of their hit-piece. If they want to spill the beans on the program, why not cut out sensitive information and release the whole report? I'm sure that if we knew who the test pilot was and asked him about the article, he'd have a lot more context to provide.

CxxTxx said:
And not only was AF-02 being flown clean, it was also, undoubtedly, being flown totally unarmed: with nothing in the bays, and without the weight of its 25 mm ammo...

The weight of those things are minor for an F-35; with a full internal load, you're talking about an aircraft that weighs 10% more (assuming max fuel and a weapons load involving 2x 2000lb bombs) than it otherwise would. The bigger question is what fuel loads it went into the dogfight with.
 
CxxTxx said:
And not only was AF-02 being flown clean, it was also, undoubtedly, being flown totally unarmed: with nothing in the bays, and without the weight of its 25 mm ammo...

If she's a dog flying like that, in the real world, the F-35A is gunna be a dawwg.

Now I'm out.
So start the thread and proclaim "I'm out" is that you David?
 
Dragon029 said:
Personally what makes me question the WIB article is the fact that they quote a total of about 7 statements, including just ~3 word phrases, from a 5 page report. Considering that the report refers to specific flight regimes "There were not compelling reasons to fight in this region.”, it seems to me that WIB are leaving quite a lot of the report out of their hit-piece. If they want to spill the beans on the program, why not cut out sensitive information and release the whole report? I'm sure that if we knew who the test pilot was and asked him about the article, he'd have a lot more context to provide.

The report is a hit-piece, but the question is if the dog-fight did occur and was the F-35's performance, vs. the F-16, sub-par.

There is quite a lot of detail missing, though. I wonder if the provider asked that the report not be quoted directly, but instead be quoted indirectly. E.g. here is proof of the report, use it but don't quote it.

Again, what is with this 'expecting the name.' Nobody is going to get a name here, as this is Washington, and these are the journalistic rules of the game. Anonymous sources speaking off the record. You either trust them or you don't.
 
Funny how with WikiLeaks and all the rest of the leakers out there, the reports always get released completely (Gilmore,OT&E,etc).


As far as "who released" it getting in trouble, no way of telling without a subpoena.
 
bobbymike said:
So start the thread and proclaim "I'm out" is that you David?

Again, my apologies. But, as we all know, the F-16.net F-35 Fanboy Club and the LockMart Defenders Brigade (TM) is a suspiciously well-organized and coordinated effort that relentlessly attacks people with the temerity to question this program. (The F-35 News Only Topic is locked for a reason...) I have no desire to engage.

My sincerest apologizes to the F-16.net F-35 Fanboy Club and the LockMart Defenders Brigade (TM) if the posting of this report has offended you.

Ted
 
CxxTxx said:
bobbymike said:
So start the thread and proclaim "I'm out" is that you David?

Again, my apologies. But, as we all know, the F-16.net F-35 Fanboy Club and the LockMart Defenders Brigade (TM) is a suspiciously well-organized and coordinated effort that relentlessly attacks people with the temerity to question this program. (The F-35 News Only Topic is locked for a reason...) I have no desire to engage.

My sincerest apologizes to the F-16.net F-35 Fanboy Club and the LockMart Defenders Brigade (TM) if the posting of this report has offended you.

Ted
It is disingenuous and disrespectful to believe virtue is only on one side of the issue and the constant questioning of opposing opinions as invalid because there is some nefarious and hidden "motivation" behind them is also lazy and tiresome.

Now I'm out. :eek:
 
The F-35 was built as a strike fighter (fighter bomber) not a dog fighter (air superiority/air dominance). -SP
 
Steve Pace said:
The F-35 was built as a strike fighter (fighter bomber) not a dog fighter (air superiority/air dominance). -SP


Wasnt the f-35 called "joint strike Fighter" at one time? Touted as cost effectively replacing several aircraft at the same time including the F-16?


If the F-35s electronic systems are so advanced and undefeatable, why not just put it in a B-2 with a few air to air missiles and have an even bigger strike aircraft? (half joking OK)


The Russian philosophy is to try at all cost to "get in close" to the opponent, so if an SU-27 thru 35 gets in close to an F-35 how will the F-35 do?

If the F-35s opponent is not displaying their IFF, then does the f-35 have to make a close range pass before firing?

Then again, maybe the F-35 will prove superior in air to air, just some things to ponder I guess.
 
Steve Pace said:
The F-35 was built as a strike fighter (fighter bomber) not a dog fighter (air superiority/air dominance). -SP

Like the F-16? Or are you suggesting the 9G maneuver requirement, and superior high AOA ability is for dropping bombs?
 
CxxTxx said:
And not only was AF-02 being flown clean, it was also, undoubtedly, being flown totally unarmed: with nothing in the bays, and without the weight of its 25 mm ammo...

If she's a dog flying in that configuration, in the real world, the F-35A is gunna be a dawwg.

Now I'm out.

You ever going to back up this statement, and your implication that they don't apply to the F-35:

"Beats me. And I'm out. My apologies, but I still believe in quaint, old-fashioned concepts like the importance of the area rule and wing-loading in a design, the importance of range and inherent manueverability, and last but not least, Lanchester's equations, so I'm not qualified to be in this debate."


or are you just going to keep huffing and puffing?
 
If this report was leaked, it would have been leaked to multiple sources, so it wouldnt be long before someone posts it in totality with sensitive areas possibly blacked out.
 
sferrin said:
Steve Pace said:
The F-35 was built as a strike fighter (fighter bomber) not a dog fighter (air superiority/air dominance). -SP

Like the F-16? Or are you suggesting the 9G maneuver requirement, and superior high AOA ability is for dropping bombs?
Where did you see documentation related to the 9G maneuver requirement and superior AOA ability? I've never seen it. -SP
 
Steve Pace said:
sferrin said:
Steve Pace said:
The F-35 was built as a strike fighter (fighter bomber) not a dog fighter (air superiority/air dominance). -SP

Like the F-16? Or are you suggesting the 9G maneuver requirement, and superior high AOA ability is for dropping bombs?
Where did you see documentation related to the 9G maneuver requirement and superior AOA ability? I've never seen it. -SP

Google F-35 9Gs and F-35 AOA.
 
Tonight on this channel: the F-35 can't dogfight with the F-16!

In other news: the Earth is not flat and actually revolves around the Sun!

And look forward to our special investigative documentary of tomorrow: why can't we eat soup with a fork?

Regards.
 
sferrin said:
CiTrus90 said:
Tonight on this channel: the F-35 can't dogfight with the F-16!

In other news: the Earth is not flat and actually revolves around the Sun!

And look forward to our special investigative documentary of tomorrow: why can't we eat soup with a fork?

Regards.

Wow. Nice, informative piece of. . .something.
Now-Now, Fellas....
 
Let me be more informative, then.

Years of research, planning and development and now we discover that the F-35 is "dead-meat" in a gun's battle, so it's useless.

Oh.

But, the F-35 is not meant to be able to dogfight with an F-16, and was never meant to.

Supermaneuverability is not the road the US have been following in developing the latest combat aircrafts, aside from the F-22, and there is a whole different philosophical approach behind that. Stealth and data fusion are what is perceived as the most important factors today.

F-16s, or other 4th gen aircrafts, going up against F-35s in an operational environment wouldn't stand a chance to survive. And i can't believe there is still someone that to this day thinks that a 1 vs 1 show off can have some actual relevance.

Low energy bleed and high maneuverability are greatly welcome, sure, but if the enemy is never going to be able to detect me and pick me up before his RWR starts going crazy, then there is no need for an HiMAT derived aircraft.

The F-35 is meant to be part of a system of systems, which, automatically excludes its use as a lone weapon. Thus, evaluating it in a 1 vs 1 situation is a non sequitur.

The fact that it's not a dogfighter doesn't mean it's going to be "dead-meat".

Regards.
 
CiTrus90 said:
Let me be more informative, then.

Years of research, planning and development and now we discover that the F-35 is "dead-meat" in a gun's battle, so it's useless.

We did? Really?
 
At least at some point JSF was supposed to have maneuverability comparable to an F-16.

http://techdigest.jhuapl.edu/TD/td1801/steidle.pdf
 

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I would advise waiting until the facts are in before leaping to conclusions one way or another.


Not that I expect anyone to do so.
 
LowObservable said:
I would advise waiting until the facts are in before leaping to conclusions one way or another.


Not that I expect anyone to do so.

HAH! Fat chance (either way ;D ). I'm wondering, where so much of the F-35 is controlled by software, if it's more a matter of refining the flight control laws, and what they will allow the pilot to do. The article in AvWeek seemed to suggest than they're fairly conservative at the moment. I find it extremely difficult to believe given all the flight testing they've done, the number of planes flying, and number of pilots trained, that they would discover only now that they had a dog.
 

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