(I’ve been keeping some notes on the F-35 program over the years, just interesting comments in forums and the like. Hope these help)
F-35 was actually specified to be a dogfighter comparable to F-16 and F-18, and by all accounts, its performance falls between those two aircraft. The F-16 has the highest sustained turn rate in the history of aviation. You could pull 9Gs until the thing ran out of fuel. Nobody is going beat that metric, because honestly, it’s overkill. You will never need that in combat. So the F-35 was never meant to achieve that.
Can the F-16 outperform the F-35A flying totally clean? Most likely, but how many times has an F-16 gone into battle in this configuration? In the last 30 years, never, which makes the while conversation irrelevant and Mr. Sprey’s comments highly inaccurate. Usually the Viper is laden with bombs, missiles, electronic warfare pods, and most importantly, external fuel tanks. Under such conditions the F-35 with same weapons load would skewer a Viper because the F-35 can carry its payload internally.
None of this really matters anyway as the F-35’s helmet mounted sight, sensor fusion and especially its Distributed Aperture System, when paired with the AIM-9X block II, will make drawn out hard maneuvering dogfights largely a thing of the past.
(CJ note: All of us who’ve read about the USAF’s experience over Vietnam are skeptical when we’re told that “the new missiles” will remove the need for dogfighting. But it’s also 50 years since F-4 Phantoms were bounced by MiG-21s, and perhaps the technological tipping point has been reached at last?)
Of course bags and bombs get dropped if and when you get bounced. But yeah, i rather be in a panther than a viper when push comes to shove. All that money bought something at least.
Still sad to compare it as an achievement to, say, the apollo program…
F-35 looks really pretty from the top. Here’s a handy reference for size. Also look at that T-50 next to the F-22. Them Russians sure like to borrow don’t they? Flankers and Fulcums are just copies of F-15s and 14s. Right?
/troll
I wouldn’t say the Flanker is related to the F-15 either. ;-) They look quite different to me and have very different handling and performance - at least, from what I have read as I haven’t flown any outside of DCS :)))
I tend to think the superficial resemblance is probably just a convergence of design which you often see in many fields where keen minds solve similar problems.
I have a question for the dogfighting veterans: I am reading about the targeting track box, and more particularly its heading caret. After checking stuff to see if I understood it right, I think I have the concept down. But what I haven’t got is a familiarity between degrees and compass heading, for my ownplane to begin with, let alone if I have to take into consideration another element.
Do you guys ever got familiarized with it? Did you have to torture yourself to get it fixated into your brain, like some new language? Do you just let it go?
Its angle of aspect. Think of it as showing the relation of his nose to yours. Very handy in judging missile shots and making lead pursuit intercepts. Heading is irrelevant. Relative heading is key. Is he heading towards you or going to your side?
It still is the bible of air combat. If those lessons apply, a game is good in my esteem. By that criterium, Ace Combat rates as good by the by.
Back in the day when the world was still young and the internet still in its infancy a buddy of mine who worked in an university library lent it from the army college library. He then copied all 400-odd pages of it for me and gave me that as a present. Because information wants to be free. I still have and cherish that binder.
I discovered it when they interviewed Wags about DCS, and then went back to the beginning. Even for hardcore avgeeks there’s a lot of of interesting info. I initially skipped the ejection seat and flight suit episode because, hey, I FLEW in an F-15D, but I went back and listened to those and found lots of interesting new info.
Of course, it’s also funny some of the stuff actual F/A-18 pilots don’t know that aviation nuts do… The guy who referred to an “F-105 Starfighter”… :)
Jell-O is the man. He has replaced Joe Rogan as my favorite podcaster. The subtle digs at the air force never fail to crack me up. His episode with wags is great. That afternoon they also recorded him to be the LSO voice for DCS. Yes they are building an official version of the LSO script.
As to the F015 starfighter, remember that Jell-O is a former Top Gun instructor. That’s directly comparable to a senior university professor. He knows his shit, be sure. A slight drop in proper designation indicates a difference in priorities, not a lack of knowledge IMO.
Lawn dart was the viper (F-16), Widowmaker is a name that has been given to a ton of machines. The -104 for example was a notorious widowmaker, or the F7U Cutlass.
Oddly enough, if you look at the mishap/sortie rate statistics of the Starfighter, it wasn’t all that bad. It just started off with a bad rep, mostly in the German Luftwaffle because they went straight from F-86s to the -104. A steep learning curve where the price of failure is sudden and utter demise made for a horrible beginning of its career.
The F-16 got its lawndart name from engine failures early in its career. We now know the F-100 and -101 series of engines as dependable and powerful, when they were new they had tons of teething problems. The viper not only had a newfangled engine that would quit or explosively self-disassemble, it also had a for the time very exotic flight control mechanism that was ripped right out of the Apollo space programme. Yeah there were bugs in the beginning. Hence Lawn Dart. At least the ejection seat worked well!
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Unrelated, due to F-14 pilots all rocking impressive mustaches, I have decided to antagonise everyone in my immediate vincinity by growing one until the F-14 gets released to DCS. Any of you guys wanna join me in the tomcat hairy upper lip challenge?
