F-35 Agility

[stefanoc]

Hi! i throw the stone! All is estimated, but for me if one F16 have 5, f15 have 4,5 , many su-27 family have 4,5 i think the f-35 must have 4, I think the F35 is an awesome aircraft, sensor fusion, stealth, but, same agility of the F16??[&:]

[ExNusquam]

This has already been discussed ad nauseam in the database thread and others.

See: tm.asp?m=3436106&mpage=58&key=&#3889448

[thewood1]

You threw the 20th or 21st stone.

[mikeCK]

Well since none of us have flown it, it's specs are still classified and it hasn't been deployed yet...all the devs can do is guess like the rest of us as to overall performance. Seems fine to me and before we go into the "dogfighting and F-16 report", that was an F-35 missing its stealth, sensors and helmet based weapons system allowing off-bore sight firing so it doesn't lead to a conclusion about the F-35 as a dogfighter.

[stefanoc]

ORIGINAL: thewood1

You threw the 20th or 21st stone.

"There is strength in numbers"[:)]

[jtoatoktoe]

You don't need stealth, sensors, or helmet based weapons for agility in a dogfight. Its a potato and was demolished by a F-16 with fuel tanks strapped on. The F-16 can probably carry those same off-bore Sidewinders as I believe all the fighter aircraft in the U.S. inventory outside of the F-22 have the newer smart helmets.

BVR will be the F-35's main advantage with all of its sensors.

Maybe some body mods or software mods can mature the aircraft into a better dog fighter and of course the development of techniques that will work well for the aircraft.

[SuaveWatermelon]

You don't need stealth, sensors, or helmet based weapons for agility in a dogfight. Its a potato and was demolished by a F-16 with fuel tanks strapped on. The F-16 can probably carry those same off-bore Sidewinders as I believe all the fighter aircraft in the U.S. inventory outside of the F-22 have the newer smart helmets.

BVR will be the F-35's main advantage with all of its sensors.

Maybe some body mods or software mods can mature the aircraft into a better dog fighter and of course the development of techniques that will work well for the aircraft.

The purpose of the test was to evaluate the F-35's flight control software to see if the limits could be broken or what the plane would do if the pilot fed maximum input to the control surfaces.
The test was not a dogfight but to see how the F-35 handled itself in high G flight (the F-16 was to be used as a reference point to maneuver against).

What the report that started this whole thing concluded was that the flight control software needed to be tweaked to loosen flight control laws and allow more maneuverability from the airframe.

Until the 3F software is put into service, we will not know really how maneuverable the F-35 is as it remains to be seen how the flight control laws are tweaked.

[p1t1o]

Fact is, the F16 is an extremely mature airframe. It has gone through so many upgrades and refinements that it probably performs close to its maximum potential, barring significant physical upgrade. The F35 in comparison, is still hot from the production line, is missing even some of its initial capabilities and likely, as many have mentioned, has yet to haave its parformance envelope fully expanded in the system software - which places hard limits on things like G and AoA.

The infamous report, accurate or innaccurate, is only one report in the first place, and based on a borderline-still-experimental aircraft in the second.

Even if the report is accurate and meaningful, the comparison needn't be a death-knell for the F35s future performance in battle.
I mean...it could be, but there is still too much data lacking.

[Cheechako]

ORIGINAL: p1t1o

Fact is, the F16 is an extremely mature airframe. It has gone through so many upgrades and refinements that it probably performs close to its maximum potential, barring significant physical upgrade. The F35 in comparison, is still hot from the production line, is missing even some of its initial capabilities and likely, as many have mentioned, has yet to haave its parformance envelope fully expanded in the system software - which places hard limits on things like G and AoA.

The infamous report, accurate or innaccurate, is only one report in the first place, and based on a borderline-still-experimental aircraft in the second.

Even if the report is accurate and meaningful, the comparison needn't be a death-knell for the F35s future performance in battle.
I mean...it could be, but there is still too much data lacking.

Also, the viper pilot has probably had way more flight hours in a viper than the F-35 in that airframe.

[mikeCK]

People that want to hate on the F-35 will do so...just like the B-1, osprey, Apache, Bradley and all sorts of other systems using new technologies that were "doomed to fail"

[mikeCK]

ORIGINAL: Cheechako

ORIGINAL: p1t1o

Fact is, the F16 is an extremely mature airframe. It has gone through so many upgrades and refinements that it probably performs close to its maximum potential, barring significant physical upgrade. The F35 in comparison, is still hot from the production line, is missing even some of its initial capabilities and likely, as many have mentioned, has yet to haave its parformance envelope fully expanded in the system software - which places hard limits on things like G and AoA.

The infamous report, accurate or innaccurate, is only one report in the first place, and based on a borderline-still-experimental aircraft in the second.

Even if the report is accurate and meaningful, the comparison needn't be a death-knell for the F35s future performance in battle.
I mean...it could be, but there is still too much data lacking.

Also, the viper pilot has probably had way more flight hours in a viper than the F-35 in that airframe.

Great point. Losing to one of the best dogfighters ever built piloted by a pilot with thousands of flight hours in a limited test without its valuable equipment...proves little

[magi]

ORIGINAL: mikeCK

People that want to hate on the F-35 will do so...just like the B-1, osprey, Apache, Bradley and all sorts of other systems using new technologies that were "doomed to fail"

This is so......

[xavierv]

ORIGINAL: mikeCK
People that want to hate on the F-35 will do so...

Likewise people who want to blindly worship the F-35 will do so...

I'm very much on the fence wrt the F-35. I personally find the F-35 defenders to be as tedious as the F-35 detractors on several military discussion boards (or blogs...) Fanboys gonna fanboy.

And in the end it is hard to tell who is right and who is wrong.

[Cheechako]

ORIGINAL: navyrecognition

ORIGINAL: mikeCK
People that want to hate on the F-35 will do so...

Likewise people who want to blindly worship the F-35 will do so...

I'm very much on the fence wrt the F-35. I personally find the F-35 defenders to be as tedious as the F-35 detractors on several military discussion boards (or blogs...) Fanboys gonna fanboy.

And in the end it is hard to tell who is right and who is wrong.

Well, I think there are legitimate concerns. Production has taken way too long, and software seems overly complicated in that releases are getting pushed back several years. That to me is a big deal because each release of that software adds more capability. If LM could get their act to together and get builds out on time or early so we could see things like the JSM, Meteor, JSOW and SDBIIs released in say, 2018 instead of 2022 - that would be a good thing. Problem is, the signal to noise ratio is too high on a lot of the news so it's harder to pull out the good info from people going on and on about the gun or how one of the initial air frames off the assembly line "lost" a dog fight. Analysis on things like fuel load, software rev, etc. would have been great to see.

But, IMO, all this doesn't matter because the US is faced with several options. 1) Buy more 4th gen fighters like strike eagles and super hornets and throw away all the money we spent on F-35 and F-22 program or 2) double down on the program and stick with the project buy. Given current political events, I'm sure there's a number of people who would like to see 300+ F-22s, but we don't have that because we were too short sighted to see five years down the road where surprise surprise, the same prime couldn't deliver the product as promised and world peers would continue pursuing their interests which don't align with ours.

Sorry, end rant [:'(]

[p1t1o]

ORIGINAL: navyrecognition
...in the end it is hard to tell who is right and who is wrong.

I tend to agree, the fence is the only really valid position at the moment, IMO.

Its not even certain that dogfighting is going to make a great difference to its mission capability, where is it written that the newest aircraft has to be the *best* at *everything*? I doubt the F117 was a great dogfighter [8D]

[cf_dallas]

ORIGINAL: Cheechako

ORIGINAL: navyrecognition

ORIGINAL: mikeCK
People that want to hate on the F-35 will do so...

Likewise people who want to blindly worship the F-35 will do so...

I'm very much on the fence wrt the F-35. I personally find the F-35 defenders to be as tedious as the F-35 detractors on several military discussion boards (or blogs...) Fanboys gonna fanboy.

And in the end it is hard to tell who is right and who is wrong.

Well, I think there are legitimate concerns. Production has taken way too long, and software seems overly complicated in that releases are getting pushed back several years. That to me is a big deal because each release of that software adds more capability. If LM could get their act to together and get builds out on time or early so we could see things like the JSM, Meteor, JSOW and SDBIIs released in say, 2018 instead of 2022 - that would be a good thing. Problem is, the signal to noise ratio is too high on a lot of the news so it's harder to pull out the good info from people going on and on about the gun or how one of the initial air frames off the assembly line "lost" a dog fight. Analysis on things like fuel load, software rev, etc. would have been great to see.

But, IMO, all this doesn't matter because the US is faced with several options. 1) Buy more 4th gen fighters like strike eagles and super hornets and throw away all the money we spent on F-35 and F-22 program or 2) double down on the program and stick with the project buy. Given current political events, I'm sure there's a number of people who would like to see 300+ F-22s, but we don't have that because we were too short sighted to see five years down the road where surprise surprise, the same prime couldn't deliver the product as promised and world peers would continue pursuing their interests which don't align with ours.

Sorry, end rant [:'(]

I'm not going to say LM has been perfect at every opportunity, but before we lay all the blame in one place, don't forget there's two other major partners, myriad smaller partners.... And over it all there's a several-hundred person (possibly more, it's freakin huge) Program Office that has had a say in every decision since 2002.

[mikmykWS]

I think our agility score is not just about physical agility but some of the features that may help (sit awareness, OODA etc). I do think that once information becomes a little clearer we'll adjust one way or other. I really don't think this issue is that disruptive to the game models at all mostly because there is some likely truth to it and we will generally apply these adjustments to other aircraft etc.

F-35 program. I do think its a little early to pass judgement and at the end of the day any issues will be pretty apparent as more aircraft IOC and these will have to be addressed out of necessity. Its an easy target because its well exceeded expectations in terms of time and monetary budget. That doesn't mean the aircraft and its systems are bad.

Just wait for SSBN(X). That project will be even more secret/murky and there will be even more smoke where there is no fire.

Mike

[mikeCK]

I wonder how much of the negative press is pushed by competitors? I agree there are fanboys on each "side" but I don't see anyone "pushing" stories of the successes..like the rate at which the f-35 is passing its current tests, or the fact that the Marine Corps is giddy over the performance. What the F-35 WILL DO is put a lot of competitors in a difficult place if successful. It will replace the A-10, F-16, f-18 domestically plus become the all-around aircraft for whatever nations purchase it. With the F-22 and F-35, there isn't a whole lot of "market" for other aircraft in the USN/Air Force or USMC. It also competed against the Eurofighter for markets. My point is that there are a lot of aircraft manufacturers that want the F-35 to fail badly since it will take up such a huge part of the market

BTW, at this point in the F-117 development, people were declaring it a failure because it dropped a bomb In a field in Panama. It wasn't stealthy, rain ruined it, it couldn't hit targets, etc

So I think the devs did a pretty good job being "fair" about the capabilities of the aircraft considering.

[ExNusquam]

BTW, at this point in the F-117 development, people were declaring it a failure because it dropped a bomb In a field in Panama. It wasn't stealthy, rain ruined it, it couldn't hit targets, etc

The F-117 was dropping bombs in Panama 6 years after IOC; it wasn't until2 years later the F-117 encountered a situation that played to it's strengths (Iraqi IADS) and it became "a success".

Considering the F-35 hasn't even declared IOC yet, I think were going to have to deal with the debate over it for a while.

[mikeCK]

Agreed. I was just using the F-117 "incident" as an example about how people will jump on an incident and use it as proof the system as a whole is a failure