yes, but then, you’re talking tactics, and I’m underlying capabilities (those that don’t match LM’s statements from years ago)

what’s more, tactics depend also on the capabilities you have, an F-104 and a Mig-15 (or even -17) won’t be used the same way.. both could win a dogfight against each other, depending on what the pilots do with them… but if Kelly Johnson came and said “the F-104 turns as well as the Mig-17” would you believe him? There’s no way it does, but yet, with the F-35, even when it appears clearly that it doesn’t do what it was claimed to do, you guys keep saying “it does”… and eventually, throw in some “argument” beside the point to avoid the question.

No- tactics are dictated by: the strengths of the aircraft, nature of the engagement (unlike many BFM set-ups, air combat does not begin with two aircraft passing each other in level flight at a set altitude and calling “fights on”), support, basically the unpredictable variations that occur in air combat.

Start by asking what were the drivers for fighter performance that influenced fighter design, which ones are still valid? What has changed?

If you look at most modern fighters, they were designed with the idea that high sustained turn rate and favorable thrust to weight ratio would give that precious 2 degree per second turn advantage over an opponent to set up a favorable firing position. High thrust to weight to gain a potential energy position over the opponent, separate and re engage (WVR combat). Those same parameters allowed for a fighter in BVR to impart energy to a missile shot and turn away from an opponents counter fire (all very important considering SARH missiles were still being used when most of the current generation of fighters were designed).

When the USAF (and I’m sure others) studied the problem in the 90’s two factors became obvious:
1. HOBS missiles and HMS make sustained ACM in close quarters obsolete. Consider Combat Cycle time: the time elapsed for an aircraft to change heading 180 degrees and accelerate back to speed. By traditional maneuverability measures, that would favor the aircraft with the highest sustained turn rate. Newer transient maneuverability measures would look at which aircraft can put it’s nose on target 180 degrees the fastest. The X-31, F-18 HARV, F-15 ACTIVE showed that High Alpha, Yaw, post -stall maneuvering did give some advantages. But even that would leave the “winning” fighter in a very vulnerable state.
2. With modern active BVR missiles, getting “first look, first shoot” was even more important than with SARH missiles. Whatever the APA et al. crowd claims about “dodging” modern BVR missiles, aircraft put on the defensive is in a kinematic, sensor, and situational awareness disadvantage in having to react to an active AAM.

As said earlier by LowObservable, or MSphere (and others), if all you need is SA and weapons, put a bunch of antennae on an B-1B, a couples of dozens of AMRAAMs, add some bombs, JDAMs, etc.. for fun and there you go… perfect “fighter” in that imaginary world for which the F-35 seems to be tailored for

A fighter still needs to have fighter-like performance. It needs to be agile, possess good acceleration, agility, speed. To what degree do you optimize an aircraft to meet: range, speed, maneuverability, flexibility (a great low level bomber may not be the best design for an air superiority fighter, load carrying, sensors, size (hence expense), with the added requirements of LO and survivability that modern fighters need?

The F-35 does have fighter performance- it does not possess the knife fighting ability of the Raptor or the Rafale- but it (may if the control laws are eased) have high alpha, nose pointing, roll rate that will make it competent in that area.

It will not have the highest sustained turn rates that were optimized in the previous generation – but it’s values are not bad ( 4.6 g is the threshold- the heavier configuration was credited with a 4.95g sustained turn rate, actual figures for the current, lighter F-35? not in public domain) world beating? No. F-105 territory? One of the more absurd claims made by critics.

Acceleration?- this has been beaten to death on this forum. It is worse than a clean F-16 and roughly equal to an F-16 with a DI of around 100. No one (outside of a few unrealistic posters who think that newer equals far superior) would call the F-16 uncompetitive in terms of acceleration.

Slow?- The aircraft can exceed mach 1 at sea level and carry four AAM to 700Kts, or Mach 1.6. Sure, an F-15 can exceed that, does that make it unviable? Most aircraft don’t see that speed even in combat conditions, and none bar, maybe the Raptor, Pak-Fa, Mig-31 will maintain that speed for any length of time.

All this while having a vast array of sensors, one of the newest and most advanced radars, massive computing power, extremely modern and capable IDAS, and whatever the critics claim about it’s stealth credentials, there is little doubt that it is less detectable than the previous generation. What would a user be willing to trade for a few degrees turn rate (that is not the deciding factor in ACM) less fuel? fewer sensors? sacrifice load carrying? larger size and hence more cost?

Trade-offs….

so, let me get it straight

the tester says “we tested the thing against an f-16, to see how it could do…”

big mess

LM says “yes, but no, in fact they aren’t finished, not the good block…”

strangely, with an even more unfinished aircraft, LM claimed that it could fly loaded like and f-16 clean, there didn’t seem to be any problems with controls authority, AoA limits and whatnot

If your BS-meter doesn’t ring an alert, I can’t help you there.

First off, have you ever read a flight test report?

Next, where does it say that “we tested the thing against an f-16, to see how it could do”. It doesn’t…and there is a very good reason for testing control law logic and departure resistance in BFM. The pilot will be rapidly moving control surfaces and abruptly applying power while oriented on different axis. The canned set ups at relatively low speed were perfect to test High alpha, pitch rate, yaw.

They learned that (largely due to the TRO experienced in early testing with the F-35C) the control logic was too restrictive, and there is a margin of maneuverability that can be added back in (with relaxed stability designs, the fcs can be programmed, too much stability dampens agility and control response).

The F-35 is not going to compete in the turn and burn compared to lightweight fighters, but overall agility should be pretty good when flight testing is done.

Of course.. there is no way to assess this figure accurately..

During the A-G mission it would be at disadvantage, due to additional weight and drag. During the A-A mission it would be advantageous because it would not have any pod, at all, of course.. The possibility to strip down all the CFTs and pods and have a light and agile fighter is a big advantage which the F-35 does not have..

MSphere…..come on. You are talking 85 more pounds than the Pirate and 200!!!! Less pounds the the OEPS-27. For that you gain air to ground capability. Just stop.

The system itself might weight 200lbs but the supporting structure for creating a cavity gets you another ~150lbs. In the end you end up not far away from what a Litening pod weighs (~450 lbs).
..

EOTS weight was 191+lbs in 2008 with a goal of 181lbs. Your total installation weight Is a guess, as per usual.

So, your saying that an aircraft carrying an internal IRST and slinging an external Litening pod would be advantageous? Maybe in your imaginary world where there is no parasitic drag, and targeting pods didn’t have airspeed limitations.

4 Grad rockets launched by rebels in #Latakia countryside land near Bassel Al-Assad Airport
https://twitter.com/sayed_ridha/status/649988946433183744

The western backed terrorists launched rockets on this area before the Russians had started their ops and it was no surprise that Russians started cleansing areas around Latakia to the displeasure of western allies.

Strikes carried out on 2nd Oct 15 by Su-34 on workshop for manufacturing improvised explosive devices

All five of the western backed rebels? In fairness at one time there were 50+ trained rebels (500 million dollars earmarked, unless one of them is John Rambo, probably a poor investment). Get a grip. there are no “Western backed rebels”, though there are many Gulf state backed rebels that the Western nations count- the majority of which are a shade of grey better than ISIS.

edit- unless you want to count the various Kurds and Iraqi forces in the east of Syria.

He posts a lot on that ****ty “War is Boring” site, doesn’t he?

That would be him

@barnes- ain’t gonna happen. Even if there were an incident, my guess would be there would be some cashiering of theater commanders and lots of media indignation, and that would be the extent.

Because David Axe is the “the Daily Mirror” and “the Sun” of defense journalists. Though I hate to insult them by classifying him as a journalist.