thanks man, i could spend the rest of my life on google and i would never find it,
this is the sentence that stuck, minus the link
With nooks and aircraft that are configured accordingly, turns Gripen tighter and rising faster than an F-16, it is after all a newer aircraft. But experienced Norwegian pilots have also managed to outmaneuver Gripen.

the norwegian F-16 is more agile than later F-16 models,
that is what i base gripen E> gripen > F-16 Norway > F-16 b52/60/etc

Now to put that in context…

https://theaviationist.com/2012/12/10/viper-dogfight/

The F-16 has areas of strength and weakness like any other fighter.

At low altitude it can out-perform an F-15 and match a Eurofighter (while presumably flying at a disadvantage at higher altitudes)… but at slow speed the Super Hornet has the advantage over the F-16. (As does the F-35 it seems.)

These comparisons are never as simple as “X beats Y.”

Also, why assume the Gripen E is more maneuverable than the Gripen C? So far as I know that is not a claim Saab has ever made and the wing loading and power to weight ratio of the Gripen E is inferior to that of the Gripen C while the aerodynamics are essentially the same. This could very easily be a case (such as with the Super Hornet/original Hornet) where the newer aircraft has better range/payload but loses agility.

Also, as I already stated in another post above it is not so clear cut that the F-16A is more maneuverable than the F-16C. The later F-16s gained weight and had higher wing-loading, but they added an awful lot of power and had superior power to weight and acceleration.

turn rate I don’t have it right now, but for the climb from low speed, you can look here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JC4vYaKLBr4

about 7:50 you have a slow pass, certainly much slower than anything you’ll see from an F-35 (except the B in hover mode, obviously) high AoA all that, followed by a direct vertical loop

Pretty sluggish… odd that they would seek to demo the Rafale in a flight regime that it so clearly isn’t happy in. I wonder how close he was to its maximum AoA.

That was the exact disparity of thought I was pointing out. Literally dozens of pilots talking about the F-35…… discarded. One pilot talks about his experience in the Grip, suddenly it’s the greatest ever.

More specifically, the pilot tweeting about his dact record could just be a hell of a pilot, oblig exaggerates that into “Gripen dominates the F-16”. Which, btw, is not what other pilots have stated. Generally, they are impressed with the Gripen’s agility, but also point out its energy disadvantage.

This…

DACT outcomes are highly dependent on pilot skill, the specific scenarios practiced, and to some extent luck. We have all seen examples of T-38s beating F-22s, or F-4s beating Rafales, etc. All that proves is that these exercises are not a game of paper-rock-scissors where X always beats Y.

In the real world a good pilot will set themselves up for success by making sure engagements take place on their terms and that they can fly their aircraft to its strengths. DACT exercises will often eliminate that possibility by setting starting conditions that while “fair” may favor one aircraft over the other. (No F-22 is going to end up in a low/slow neutral dogfight setup with a T-38/F-5 in actual combat.)

Getting to the claim by the one Gripen pilot that he had never lost to an F-16… maybe he really is an exceptional pilot. Maybe the scenarios he flew played to the Gripen’s strengths better than the F-16. There is a very realistic chance he just hasn’t flown much against F-16s.

You can’t take one anecdotal claim with very little detail and use it as the basis of a whole belief system.

Even a cursory examination of the available accounts of how the F-35 flies shows that it is in no way “unmaneuverable” relative to 4th generation fighters. There were a few 4th generation fighter pilots that preferred their older aircraft to the F-35 for some WVR scenarios but the large majority felt the F-35 was more capable and 100% of the pilots chose the F-35 for BVR.

A report like the Heritage Foundation survey that has been quoted several times in this thread recently is almost unheard-of in its level of detail and the number of pilots interviewed. I am not aware of anything similar even for aircraft that have been in service for decades.

wrong on all accounts, and wing load is going to be a problem at altitude

wishful thinking

With your usual sourcing and logic… :stupid:

There will always be some fanboys collecting information and making up big theories to fit their view. They will try to look knowledgeable with some charts, numbers etc…Classic but not impressed. I am simply bored in advance of being dragged in a pointless BS number comparisons. Arguing the F35 is agile/maneuvrable compared to most 4th jets is simply silly. It has plenty of other qualities but maneuvrability is not its strong area.

I find it more than a little amusing how little self awareness you are exhibiting with this post.

All of the best evidence available, including interviews with dozens of experienced fighter pilots who are now flying the F-35, clearly show that it is anything but sub-par from a maneuverability standpoint.

Of course they are all probably fanboys…

Thirty-one experienced pilots currently flying the F-35A were asked to rate the energy and maneuvering characteristics of their previous fourth-generation fighters in a combat configuration throughout the dogfighting maneuver envelope in a combat configuration after jettisoning their external stores. They were then asked to rate the performance of the F-35A using the same scale, with fuel and internal munition loads associated with a combat loadout under their current G and CLAW restrictions. The F-35A compared well to the four other fighters (F-15C, F-15E, F-16C, and A-10) in most every regime. (For the total results and responses from the pilots of each respective fighter, see Chart 1.)

Each pilot was then asked to select which fighter he would rather fly in combat if he were to face a clone flying the other jet in six different air-to-air situations. (See Chart 2.) If the pilot selected an F-15C in a short-range setup, for example, he felt he could outperform a pilot of equal abilities in the F-35A. Pilots selected the F-35A 100 percent of the time in beyond-visual-range situations and over 80 percent of dogfighting situations where energy and maneuverability are critical to success.

http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2016/08/operational-assessment-of-the-f-35a-argues-for-full-program-procurement-and-concurrent-development-process

To sum it up, my experience so far is that the F-35 makes it easier for me to maintain the offensive role, and it provides me more opportunities to effectively employ weapons at my opponent.

In the defensive role the same characteristics are valuable. I can «whip» the airplane around in a reactive maneuver while slowing down. The F-35 can actually slow down quicker than you´d be able to emergency brake your car. This is important because my opponent has to react to me «stopping, or risk ending up in a role-reversal where he flies past me. (Same principle as many would have seen in Top Gun; «hit the brakes, and he’ll fly right by.» But me quoting Top Gun does not make the movie a documentary).

Defensive situations often result in high AOA and low airspeeds. At high AOA the F-16 reacts slowly when I move the stick sideways to roll the airplane. The best comparison I can think of is being at the helm of ship (without me really knowing what I am talking about – I’m not a sailor). Yet another quality of the F-35 becomes evident in this flight regime; using the rudder pedals I can command the nose of the airplane from side to side. The F-35 reacts quicker to my pedal inputs than the F-16 would at its maximum AOA (the F-16 would actually be out of control at this AOA). This gives me an alternate way of pointing the airplane where I need it to, in order to threaten an opponent. This «pedal turn» yields an impressive turn rate, even at low airspeeds. In a defensive situation, the «pedal turn» provides me the ability to rapidly neutralize a situation, or perhaps even reverse the roles entirely.

https://theaviationist.com/2016/03/01/heres-what-ive-learned-so-far-dogfighting-in-the-f-35-a-jsf-pilot-first-hand-account/

“Even so, slow-speed and high angle-of-attack performance is much better than many fourth generation fighters like the F-16. High angle of attack testing has been an eye-opener for previous F-16 pilots, who are not used to very good slow speed performance. Straight line acceleration is also much better. At higher speeds, the F-16 has the sustained turning advantage (as it does over many aircraft like the F-18), but only when fighting in training configurations without any missiles or bombs. When flying in combat configs, even the high speeds sustained fight becomes much closer.”

http://airheadsfly.com/2016/01/26/dutch-lightning-testers/

These are actual F-35 pilots US, Norwegian, and Dutch. They are very consistent in their descriptions of the F-35’s capabilities, and very positive. These are not fanboys “making up theories to fit their views.” (I will leave you to guess who that is…)

To quote Andraxxuss

http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?135460-test-pilot-quot-F-35-can-t-dogfight-quot/page34

It would be nice if the site had a script such that every time he re-posted the same stupid comment it would automatically link to one of the threads where it was debunked.

Weren’t – apart of SATCOM- capabilities that were originally scheduled for block 3F and SDD completion now scheduled for block 4? I may be wrong of course, but what is now called modernization wasn’t originally scheduled in SDD? i’d be genuinely interested in comparing original and today’s cpability schemes of standards.

At Tomcat vup, idfc your opinion about me please stop calling out to me, i can live without (and i’ve already been married once, thank you but it is a NO). And no use citing Rafale F1, you know perfectly they never were considered as anything but emergency stop gap solution. (like F-35 block 3F? kidding you).

Note : i did not attack the plane, but the program’s management. (eg. Testing partially a software before updating an untested part is simply criminal imho. Well that’s what i understood was done, might be wrong). All in all, what i meant is implementing capabilities originally scheduled for FOC in JORD and calling it a modernization is a smoke screen not to clearly say “we are so late that we will implement FOC without expected (contractual?) capabilities…

If you don’t want to use the Rafale F1s, use the fact that it took the Rafale years and years after it was supposedly fully operational to get a targeting pod integrated…