I have much respect and admiration for Pierre Sprey – primarily due to what he contributed to the F-16 and A-10 programs.
It is because of his condemnation and criticism of how and what the USAF decided to do to the original LWF / ACF concept of simple, cheap daytime dogfighter, by adding weight (additional fuel, sensors and strengthening for multi-role reason), while not adding additional wing and tail plan area, which he stipulated what was needed, is why the basic air-to-air performance (PWR and agility) has degraded so much – as he warned it would!
So I would be inclined to take note of what concerns him and what he says.
Wasn’t it also Sprey and Boyd who also predicted the problems, delay’s, degradation of performance (especially in range) when the US Navy pushed for the modification of the Northrop YF-17 over that of the navalised YF-16?
And were they not right again???????????
As for Winslow Wheeler – I’ve never heard of him!
Regards
Pioneer
I humbly believe that the Lightning is a perfect match to the USAF doctrine as matured during the 90s and early 00s.
During this period the USAF had to face less then modest opponents, were the goal was military operations without NO casualties whatsoever.
The F-35 will be perfect for Bosnia or Iraq type operations, as long as it takes cover by some real fighters (F-22, F-15, EF etc).
Trouble is what will happen if some F-35 user, needs to operate it against an well prepared and equivalent opponent. Say USAF against PLAAF, for example. If stealth is its only ace, it is going down…..
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