
Test Pilot Admits the F-35 Can’t Dogfight - CarolineW
https://warisboring.com/test-pilot-admits-the-f-35-can-t-dogfight-cdb9d11a875
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tim333
previous:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9803043](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9803043)

392 comments.

Somewhat debunked since:

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

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natermer
It's not really debunked.

F-35 is not really suitable for combat. Fighter jets are now mostly obsolete,
but F-35 is just especially bad.

The stealth features of it dictate much of it's design, but they destroy it's
usefulness as a fighter-bomber. Which means that it will never be suitable for
a replacement for the A-10.

It vulnerable to IR tracking weapons, which it's stealth features do not
address well. IR guided weapons have traditionally been the stuff that shoots
down American combat aircaft.

In addition to this the F-35 cross section is not large enough for it's
stealth technology to deal with VHF wavelength radar. B-2 bomber can deal with
that stuff, but F-35 cannot. This means that American stealth fighters are
easy to identify on radar... point a VHF radar at them and get a response and
then point a XHF radar at them and get almost nothing. This means that for
their stealth to be useful they have to do things like shadow civilian
airliners or cargo planes to do any sort of infiltration.

The stealth is also a trade off between 'over the horizon' radar guided
weapons and being sneaky. You cannot turn on your radar and detect other
aircraft and expect to not be noticed by their radar. Which means that you
have to depend on other aircraft or ground stations to coordinate, which means
that if you want to use stealth and detect other military aircraft you are
going to have to operate in airspace already 'owned' by you.

I expect that F-35 will never be allowed to operate in combat because of these
issues and others except in areas were you are only dealing with very
technologically limited opponents.

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i336_
For some reason I'd like to share this base64 data: URI. I think it might be a
URL to a certain PDF.

data:text/plain;base64,aHR0cDovL2F2aWF0aW9ud2Vlay5jb20vc2l0ZS1maWxlcy9hdmlhdGlvbndlZWsuY29tL2ZpbGVzL3VwbG9hZHMvMjAxNS8wNi9GLTM1JTIwSGlnaCUyMEFvQSUyME1hbmV1dmVycy5wZGYK

