
Test Pilot Admits the F-35 Can’t Dogfight - suprgeek
https://medium.com/war-is-boring/test-pilot-admits-the-f-35-can-t-dogfight-cdb9d11a875
======
NamTaf
To all those saying that dogfighting is an antiquited doctrine: I agree with
you, but the F-35A is supposed to still do that, regardless of how archaic and
improbable such a situation is supposed to occur.

Because it's supposed to be able to dogfight, compromises in its other
capacities have been reduced. Now we find out that, as everyone knew, it can't
dogfight. So why even design it to do a mediocre job of dogfighting when they
could equivalently eliminate that design constraint and allow it to do its
other roles better?

The simple fact is that the military has tried to bite off more than it can
chew by asking that the F-35 can do everything at once. Because the F-35A is
slated to replace the F-16, other sacrifices have been made to make it sort of
approach being kind of nearly as capable as the F-16. As a result, it is doing
its other roles worse than what would be the case if the military instead
accepted that one size does not fit all and removed that requirement.

Frankly, it doesn't matter how unrealistic the idea of dogfighting is. The
military said 'make this thing able to dogfight at least equivalently to the
F-16' so LM have gone away and made specific design decisions to try to
achieve that. It's now fallen short of that target, and in doing so has _also_
compromised other capabilities.

~~~
jonathankoren
Dogfighting was supposed to be archaic and improbable in 1968 as well, since
who was going to get close and maneuver when you had guided missiles? Then the
losses mounted, and they created TOPGUN.

What really makes dogfighting unlikely, is the fact that United States hasn't
fought anyone with airplanes in 40 years.

From everything I read, the F-35 is shit for two reasons. First, the Pentagon
hadn't learned it's lessons from all the other times they tried to make one
fighter for every service which almost always has failed. (The F-4 being the
notable exception.) And Second, the Marines insisted on a damn VSTOL aircraft.
Really, it's the Marines's fault. If ignored them (and really you should,
because they're just insisting on duplicated effort), then you'd have much
narrower, and thus maneuverable, airframe. The reason why the airframe is so
wide, is because it must accommodate a lift-fan than isn't even installed in
the Air Force and Navy versions. Even when the lift-fan is installed, the
extra weight, and the need to take off and land vertically, causes the Marine
version to have less range and less armaments. If you had cut the Marines out,
you would have gotten the <a href="[http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/amazing-
photos-of-chinas-ne...](http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/amazing-photos-of-
chinas-newest-stealth-jet-show-growin-1657003826">J-31</a>).

It's really a shitty plane, and what really pisses me off about it, is that
this seems to be incredibly common place anymore. Read the <a
href="[http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/broken-booms-why-is-it-
so-h...](http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/broken-booms-why-is-it-so-hard-to-
develop-procure-a-1698725648">perpetual) cluster fuck around the KC-X</a>. You
can't read these things without wondering if the Pentagon doesn't actually
know how to buy anything, and they're getting taken for a ride by overly
complex (and thus very lucrative) contractors.

I don't think the Pentagon knows what it's doing. Actually, I don't think
anyone involved knows what they're doing.

~~~
Tuna-Fish
> Dogfighting was supposed to be archaic and improbable in 1968 as well, since
> who was going to get close and maneuver when you had guided missiles? Then
> the losses mounted, and they created TOPGUN.

There were some actually good reasons to believe that dogfighting was a part
of a bygone era. When those planes used in '68 were being developed, missiles
truly had the kind of superiority that their designers expected them to have.
Then better countermeasures and anti-missile tactics were developed, and
suddenly dogfighting was relevant again.

The first part is again true today. Missiles are easier to update than
aircraft. Taking an air-to-air missile from the 90's and ripping out the
laughably outdated electronics and replacing them with a modern CPU and
targeting software makes it able to completely bypass all countermeasures
available to current fighters. Right now, if an enemy gets to lock a missile
at you from within the envelope where you can't simply outrun the missile
until it's engine runs out, you might as well immediately eject. Your evasive
maneuvers are not going to beat a missile that is getting mid-course updates
from it's firing aircraft, which can tell your decoys apart from your plane,
and which can plan and simulate the optimal attack vector in ways that the
90's missile designers could only dream of. Near future missile designs using
much improved engines like ramjets or the throttleable ducted rocket with a
secondary ram combustion stage on the MBDA Meteor seek to increase the engine
performance and longevity of missiles to the point that you really can't ever
even outrun them.

So currently no aircraft can remain flying with missiles in the air. There is,
of course, always the possibility that we develop new countermeasures that can
beat modern missiles, returning dogfighting to relevance. However, even if
missiles always beat aircraft in the future, that doesn't make a F-35 a good
fighter. Because, if missiles always beat planes, why not just build lots of
cheap planes with a lot of missiles?

~~~
gambiter
I'll admit I've been out of the field for a long time... I sort of cut ties
and haven't read up on the latest tech in probably 15 years. Your point about
missiles receiving mid-course updates is very interesting, though. I have a
couple of questions...

Has any (unclassified) work been done on rear-mounted weaponry? I mean, if
missiles can have modern CPUs and targeting software, can't the
countermeasures have those as well? It seems like accurate, rear-mounted,
auto-targeting machine guns (or heck, lasers for all I know) could still be an
effective countermeasure, especially if you're in the position of trying to
outrun one. That is to say, rather than trying to outmaneuver, outrunning
would take you on a straight path, which would put the missile on a more-or-
less straight path behind you until it hits. It seems like this is the perfect
scenario for auto-targeting defensive cannons.

~~~
hobs
I have seen the Trophy countermeasure system for tanks work in a similar way,
its not ridiculous to think it could be applied to planes.

Upon further review it looks like Raytheon is also making one (again for
tanks.)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trophy_%28countermeasure%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trophy_%28countermeasure%29)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quick_Kill_active_protection_s...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quick_Kill_active_protection_system)

------
pravda
Who cares? The mission of the F-35 was to get taxpayer money into the accounts
of Lockheed Martin and its merry army of subcontractors. __Mission
accomplished! __

~~~
BinaryIdiot
After doing government contracting myself that really seems to be the mission
of all government projects. Unfortunately.

~~~
hndude
This book is dedicated to detailing some of the inner workings of that
phenomena:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confessions_of_an_Economic_Hit...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confessions_of_an_Economic_Hit_Man)

~~~
contingencies
That's a great book - and one that I've discussed at some length with real
diplomats from involved countries - but actually it's more focused on the use
of burdensome and unnecessary international debt to dominate developing
nations (hence the name).

~~~
DennisP
I read the book too. Pretty curious what the diplomats thought of it.

~~~
contingencies
They validated its story for their country (Indonesia; opening chapter).

------
cromwellian
Do we really need manned fighter planes at all? For a trillion dollars, you
can overwhelm enemy air defenses with cheap, primitive drones in a saturation
attack.

A tomahawk missile costs about $575k per unit, that lets you buy about 2
million tomahawks for $1 trillion. If you built a drone version that could
loiter over an enemy airspace and then attack, sort of a tomahawk version of
the Predator, you could buy a hundred thousand of them even if they were 10
million a piece.

You could also built UCAV fighters that could out-turn and fly most fighters
by avoiding the need for the cockpit overhead and restrictions in g-force.
Missiles make 40g turns, and drone airfames have been build to sustain 12-15g
turning.

Are we spending a trillion dollars because the AirForce has a romantic notion
of a human dogfighter in the seat when a guy with a joystick could do the job?
Top Gun is a lot less interesting if robots or teleoperation is in play, but
do we really that kind of engagement?

~~~
akira2501
> For a trillion dollars, you can overwhelm enemy air defenses with cheap,
> primitive drones in a saturation attack.

For a few hundred dollars I can jam your communications channel(s) to the
drones. Asymmetric warfare sucks.

~~~
ObviousScience
> For a few hundred dollars I can jam your communications channel(s) to the
> drones. Asymmetric warfare sucks.

The problem is that once we're talking tens of millions of dollars and up --
no, you can't.

We're talking the swarm is likely operating in a shared point-to-point link
mode, either using highly directional antennas that are essentially deaf to
below, optical links, or (more likely) a mixture of both modes.

At 10,000 drones, they likely can form a stable mesh network over the city
covering a wide enough area at a few miles in the sky that you're talking
about having to run power plants or detonate magnets with high explosives to
generate the kind of wattage needed to shout in to the directional
communications gear.

Jamming a few hobbyist drones is nothing like jamming thousands of military
grade drones, and the techniques you think will stop their communications
aren't all that effective.

However, scanning the area under your bot swarm of amateur attempts to jam the
network is probably a great way to target RF engineers in preparation for a
ground invasion, and minimize their ability to improvise communications gear
once the main communications networks are knocked out.

tl;dr: Taking out a $10,000,000+ swarm of military grade weapons isn't the
same as disabling a few hobbyist trinkets, and may get you seriously hurt in
the process.

~~~
akira2501
> The problem is that once we're talking tens of millions of dollars and up --
> no, you can't.

Sure. If you're willing to build a new GPS system, because that's decently
jammable for cheap.

Also are you proposing that all the drones will be individually piloted on
missions as they are now? If so, I don't strictly have to jam the drones on
the battlefield, I can just jam your satellite uplink or physically attack
your operations centers. Add the cost of a plane ticket.

So far, we haven't used these weapons against any military that could be
considered our peers. I wouldn't be so confident in our operational
deployments without anything to base it on.

~~~
irishcoffee
You've done an exceptional job of proving you have no idea what you're talking
about. (Hint: I write software for a govt. contractor that builds drones and
their control stations)

~~~
jessaustin
Can you point us to any public information about military systems' jamming
resilience? E.g. here's a simple comm system, here's how you jam it, and
here's a better comm system that can't be jammed that way?

~~~
irishcoffee
I can't really get into the details, I apologize. I can tell you that the
specific topic of jamming isn't a concern. Try and think about UAVs in the
same way you might think about commercial planes. It would tend to make sense
that the UAV model was most likely forked from there, at least initially.

~~~
jessaustin
Even with respect to radio interference in commercial planes, the public is
subjected to more misinformation than information. How many planes have
crashed due to cellphone use? Have there ever been any? Speaking specifically
of commercial GPS use, was all the uproar about LightSquared just bullshit?
They weren't on the GPS band, they were only _near_ it. I recall lots of
authorities confidently ordering us to just trust them, that LS was a dire
threat to civil aviation. If LightSquared is a threat to UAVs too, our
"enemies" might want to buy their old equipment off eBay. For that matter, if
USA military radios are so robust, why do they have to reserve half the usable
spectrum for their private pristine use? Wouldn't they be just as comfortable
on the Wifi band?

There are reasons why civilians might be reluctant to simply trust the
confident assurances of random anonymous defense contractors.

~~~
irishcoffee
> There are reasons why civilians might be reluctant to simply trust the
> confident assurances of random anonymous defense contractors.

Which is absolutely your prerogative, and I don't blame you. You make some
very good points. I would hope you might also be able to see my perspective:
reading "facts" that are incorrect and not being able to add real value to the
conversation. Sure, I chose my job, and the frustration comes with the
territory.

------
mrweasel
The F-35 is one of the planes Denmark is considering to replace it's F-16s.
It's most likely going to be selected because of politics, regardless of it
being expensive and not at all what we need.

Three Danish defence experts pointed out that while the F-35 is the most
advance plane "available", it doesn't matter. While dogfighting is out date,
high tech is equally useless. Neither Denmark nor the US have been in a
conflict since WWII, where the advanced features of the F-35 would have made
any difference.

Unless you decide to go to war with Russia or maybe China, the F-35 is so far
beyond what you would reasonable require that the cost is completely
unjustified.

Sadly for Denmark we pissed of SAAB and they will no long bid to deliver plane
to the Danish Royal Air Force, despite them having having a suitable plane.

~~~
VeejayRampay
Hey fellow European. I am not a plane specialist by any means, but I have a
question about that F-35 potential purchase. Denmark is part of the European
Union, so wouldn't it make sense for Denmark to purchase a European fighter
jet like the Eurofighter or maybe a Rafale? Then again, maybe those jets are
not very good, dated or too expensive, I'm just genuinely wondering why
Denmark would not put its money where its interests lie.

~~~
smcl
This is exactly what Lewis Page (defence reporter @ The Reg) suggested,
ditching the F35 order and buying in some Rafales or F-18 Hornets
-[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/04/17/f35_carriers_plot_by...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/04/17/f35_carriers_plot_by_bae_and_raf/)

Seems the UK have also ordered a shedload of F35s to replace a number of
different roles in the RAF including the carrier launched Harrier jets. We've
since sold the Harriers to the US which is quite telling really.

~~~
cmdkeen
Lewis Page is a joke in the defence community for a good reason.

The UK's harriers were shagged after years of use, they were sold to the US so
they could be cannibalised for spares. Plus we only had the GR versions which
were not fighters, the Sea Harrier was retired even earlier.

The UK needs a STOVL multi-role fighter because of the Navy. The RAF are
ordering the same planes because then they can fly them off the carriers as
well. The cat and traps option on the carrier wasn't really a flier as no-one
has managed to get a reliable EMALS catapult working. The US at one point was
going to pay us to be the guinea pig for EMALS, but that's rather a risk if it
hadn't worked out.

------
kosmic_k
Am I going to be the only one who is going to question the source here? The
author has a clear opinion on the F-35 that he interjects inbetween the
comments and War is Boring's previous reporting on the F-35 have been mostly
trying to take it down a couple of notches. Everything here is based on an
unnamed source and a document which may or maynot even exist.

According to Aviation Week, a reputable defense and aviation source, the F-35
has been doing loading tests. Meaning that if this report and dogfight
happened then it was against a electronically limited F-35 against a platform
that is very mature and limits understood. Here's a link to the story in
question: [http://m.aviationweek.com/defense/f-35-flies-
against-f-16-ba...](http://m.aviationweek.com/defense/f-35-flies-
against-f-16-basic-fighter-maneuvers)

~~~
thrill
No, you're not the only one. Without reading the entire and uneditorialized
pilot's report then it's a questionable act of journalism on display. That
said, even if the F-35 is about equal to the F-16 in maneuverability, there
are many other capabilities that it will excel at.

------
hackuser
This story really is about propaganda and public manipulation. (The following
might sound condescending, sorry; there's no easy way to say 'you're being
manipulated'. Everyone is, at various times.)

The F-35 is highly politicized, and that political fight takes place on the
battlefield of public opinion, with both sides trying to manipulate the public
with propaganda. And many here on HN are playing their roles perfectly,
responding to the propaganda like mice responding to stimuli in a maze.

We're all susceptable to it and I try hard to learn to recognize it. I think a
good sign of propaganda is the choice of phrasing. If someone is trying to
manipulate you, they often try to arouse anger and outrage -- angry people
aren't open to reasonable discussion and other opinions, so if you get people
outraged on your side then they are innoculated against other arguments. You
can see the lack of balanced, smart analysis and the widespread expression of
outrage here. Someone trying to inform you will take a much different
approach, carefully presenting information and avoiding distorting your
understanding with provocation. For example, consider the phrase, "New stealth
fighter is dead meat in an air battle" \-- clearly it's meant to arouse and
not inform.

The article represents the analysis, abridged and without context, of one
tester in one test of a system that's in its test phase and not meant to be in
production for 1.5 years. There are many other articles, representing
individuals' opinions (including test pilots), some that praise the F-35 and
some that criticize it.

I'm not saying the F-35 is a good deal; I don't know. I don't know much at all
about fighter planes (and reading the comments, I know more than many here). I
don't know if dog-fighting is relevant; maybe it's gone the way of broadsides
in combat between warships (and better dog-fighters are like Henry Ford's
'faster horses'). I don't know if the problems described by the test pilot are
bugs of a test system (that's why we test!). Think about the state of your
systems 1.5 years before production -- they may not look so great.

I do know that propaganda like the OP reduces public knowledge; it doesn't
increase it.

EDIT: Edited to be a little less obnoxious.

~~~
duaneb
> I'm not saying the F-35 is a good deal

I can't imagine how many lives the F-35 would have to save (or combatants to
kill, not sure how these equations are calculated) for the money to be "a good
deal". You can't put a price on human life. If we could, how much would the
average life that was lost on september 11th be valued? In the billions?

~~~
hackuser
> You can't put a price on human life

Interestly, anyone engineering human safety, and anyone dealing with its
consequences, including the courts and insurance industry, all have to. For
example, designing a car, you can always make it safer and more expensive, but
where do you draw the line? What are the ethical and legal requirements? What
will customers pay for? There is a number out there for the value of a life
and also one for serious injury (major loss of function), but I don't remember
what they are.

More importantly, there is far more than the pilot's life at stake. There are
the other soldiers, sailors and pilots who die because they are now
unprotected. There are the civilians who suffer because the mission fails. And
there is the security and safety of the entire nation and its allies -- if
Western air forces don't have effective fighter planes, it increases the
threat to democracy and liberty around the world. It sounds dramatic, but
those are the real stakes.

~~~
duaneb
> Interestly, anyone engineering human safety, and anyone dealing with its
> consequences, including the courts and insurance industry, all have to.

This is generally context sensitive and inaccurate. Engineers are attempting
to limit liability, courts are attempting to compensate, and the insurance
industry is attempting to limit compensation. These are not honest evaluations
of human value, but rather honest evaluations of the market value of a human.
The F-35 had better save millions of lives.

------
WalterBright
It was predicted back in the 1960's that the price of fighters would rise to
the point of the entire military budget would be expended building one
fighter. So far, we're right on target.

We have clearly shot past the point where anyone would dare risk employing the
F-35 in any combat role.

~~~
harigov
Could it be the case that the whole point of "trying" to build this fighter
jet is to research the necessary technologies just in case future demands it?

~~~
zipwitch
If it was a dozen aircraft, which is where the Russian 5th Gen fighter program
is presently, then that might be it. But the US military is ordering over two
thousand of them. That's a little much for keeping the skill and knowledge
base around.

~~~
adventured
It's more likely that 2,000 of them will never be delivered.

It'll be more like 500, and they'll kill the purchases in N years and move on
to the next program. A higher volume mimic of the F22 outcome. The defense
contractors will make 1/5th as many as planned in 2010, at 1/2 the cost.

------
grizzles
Crazy stuff. I'm bemused that this project goes on year after year and no one
in the US govt has the onions to stand up to Lockheed Martin's lobbying
machine.

A trillion f ing dollars!! For that amount, you could fund 1000 startup
companies a million dollars each to develop their best fighter, and stage a
knockout tournament until you have whittled it down to the 15 best designs and
you'd still have $993 billion to spread among the surviving designs.

Oh, your war drones have humans strapped to them...how quaint. --Some future
general

~~~
ori_b
> you could fund 1000 startup companies a million dollars each

A billion dollars, you mean.

~~~
pizza
Alternatively, one million startups with one million dollars each..

------
akamaka
Some commenters are unclear about the role of the F35, so I figured I'd quote
Wikipedia:

 _The F-35A is expected to match the F-16 in maneuverability and instantaneous
and sustained high-g performance, and outperform it in stealth, payload, range
on internal fuel, avionics, operational effectiveness, supportability, and
survivability. It is expected to match an F-16 that is carrying the usual
external fuel tank in acceleration performance.

The A variant is primarily intended to replace the USAF's F-16 Fighting
Falcon._

~~~
rurounijones
It is also slated to replace the A-10 Thunderbolt II (AKA the Warthog, AKA the
flying gun), another role for which there is much doubt regarding its
capabilities.

~~~
JupiterMoon
I didn't think that there was any doubt about this. It is totally incapable of
performing the A-10's role.

~~~
rjsw
The A-10 will get shot down too easily today unless it stays high enough to be
out of range of surface to air missiles and just uses missiles or bombs
itself. At height it is too slow to cover a reasonable area compared to
something like an F-16.

~~~
JupiterMoon
As I understand it the real advantage of the A-10 is persistence. It can stay
around and provide close support for a long time period relative to a fast
jet. Apparently the shooters on the ground like having this type of support...

Why not let the Army decide what ground support planes it gets and leave the
Air Force to gain air superiority and strategic bombing.

~~~
lmm
> Why not let the Army decide what ground support planes it gets and leave the
> Air Force to gain air superiority and strategic bombing.

Because then we end up paying for 4 complete militaries. Everyone loves having
their own set of toys, and can make the case for why a particular role makes
sense for them.

~~~
JupiterMoon
But surely one lesson from the F-35 is that sometimes having specialised
equipment can be cheaper than having one multi-role item?

~~~
lmm
Sometimes? Sure. But just letting each branch do what they want isn't the
right way either.

~~~
JupiterMoon
Of course. Yes I realise that my post might have seemed like that. There
should clearly be a joint strategy.

However, as I understand it the US Army currently can't have fixed wing planes
(although they can have helicopters) yet are the ones that need close air
support and also understand what is needed from it best.

------
dkbrk
The F-35 wasn't designed to be a superlative dogfighter and the F-16 is one of
the best handling aircraft in history. By no means am I saying that
dogfighting is irrelevant -- history has shown that even with long-range
missiles there will always be times when aircraft manage to close the
distance, but this test is extremely artificial and doesn't by any means make
the F-35 a waste of money.

The claim that “The helmet was too large for the space inside the canopy to
adequately see behind the aircraft" is quite strange. Despite developmental
issues, the F-35 Head-Mounted Display has been completed and displays imagery
in a complete sphere (4pi steradian) from the aircraft's Distributed Aperture
System. Additionally, the F-35 has a somewhat roomier cockpit than the F-16,
though rear visibility is more obstructed.

The control systems are still being tuned to some extent as well. The F-35 is
fully fly-by-wire, and it tries to make sure the aircraft can't be
overstressed or stall, but these limits can be too conservative. I'm not
claiming that maneuverability will drastically improve, but this is one of the
many objectives of testing.

------
demarq
In the aviation industry designs really do stand the test of time. A large
number of airliners,props and helicopters were designed back in the 60's and
70's with only a few minor upgrades here and there.

I can almost understand why the new jet is having a hard time replacing the
previous one. I say almost because at a trillion dollars... Lol

------
bdamm
Well the good news is that Boeing is still cranking out F-18s with no end in
sight. And for the price of a single F-35, you can get 10 F-18s. So hey, send
out the platoon!

~~~
threeseed
F-18 = 65.3 million

F-35 = 148 - 251 million depending on model

It actually looks reasonably decent value when you look at it is this way.

~~~
bdamm
Negative. The F-35 model that the Navy uses costs $337 million. And the same
use (carrier F-18 E/F) is $57 according to a Navy web page. So I was a little
off... the A models were much less expensive, but that's still 5 F-18F models
for one F-35. I think in a skirmish 5 F-18s will beat the pants off a single
F-35, since there is no way an F-35 can carry sufficient munitions to
compensate for the anti-missile capabilities of 5 F-18s.

The only possible way an F-35 could take out 5 F-18s is if its advanced
electronics warfare package could remotely hack the avionics of the F-18s, or
deploy some EMP weapon (then they all bail out!)

------
anovikov
So what? It wasn't meant to be used for dogfight. It is a strike fighter with
some A2A capability, to be used in combination with F-22 if the airspace is
highly contested. When a small number of F-22s is escorting a large number of
F-35s, their advantage of IRST and networking capability together with long-
range, LOAL AIM-120D (and with European, and later potentially U.S. users too,
even more capable MBDA Meteor), will ensure they will clear our most bandits
long before getting to the WVR range, where F-22s will be able to take over
the job.

~~~
commandar
This is all well and fine assuming you have enough F-22s. We don't.

There's an infamous RAND study involving a conflict over the Strait of Taiwan:

[http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/rgs_dissertations/...](http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/rgs_dissertations/2011/RAND_RGSD267.pdf)

The tl;dr of it is that even assuming F-22s could score a perfect 1:1 missiles
fired to kill ratio while perfectly evading all enemy missiles, the simple
fact of the matter is that they'd get overwhelmed by the sheer number of enemy
aircraft and run out of munitions.

And then the airfields get destroyed and it doesn't matter how good your air
superiority fighters are if they don't have anywhere to operate out of.

~~~
anovikov
Also, fulldome IRST means it won't need much of a dogfight. It can direct
missile from any angle.

------
colechristensen
For people who don't understand the context, this is incredibly misleading.

>the Air Force organized specifically to test out the F-35’s prowess as a
close-range dogfighter

They fail to mention that dogfighting is as antiquated as Snoopy and the Red
Baron. Talking about this test without the context is plain irresponsible.

Modern air superiority strategy is about delaying detection with stealth
combined with advanced electronic warfare and coordination intelligence suites
to destroy the enemy before he even sees you, or at least when it's much to
late to have any meaningful response. It isn't 'perfect' stealth, but it
doesn't need to be. Just need to get close enough that your missiles get to
where the need to go opening up the theater for other assets to do their
thing.

"Too close for missiles, switching to guns" is ancient history.

The F-35 is no good at dogfighting because it wasn't designed to be, the test
was just something you do to test your outer limits. "Failing" isn't failure.

~~~
srean
> dogfighting is as antiquated as Snoopy and the Red Baron

So they said during Vietnam too.

~~~
colechristensen
People being wrong on a subject 40 years ago doesn't mean the same arguments
are valid today.

~~~
lagadu
Had they really felt that dogfighting was obsolete, the F-35A wouldn't have a
gun.

------
javajosh
Jesus Christ, can't we kill this program already? What's going on, a trillion
dollar sunk-cost fallacy?

~~~
beedogs
Just keeping the military-industrial complex well-fed, basically. It doesn't
matter if the thing can even get off the ground.

~~~
XorNot
Also the long tail of air force generals who were originally pilots.

The biggest shift which will happen over the next 15 years is when generals
start being minted who were drone flight controllers or managed those
operations. They'll have a very different perspective on where they want
development funds.

------
acd
The stealth the anti radar feature is visible on long wave radio. Something
that was likely sold as a feature to the tax payer but does as far as I
understand work that well in practise.

Pierre Sprey F16 and A10 co-designer speaks about F35 and specifically about
dog fight 04:00 in the video. Stealth capabilities 06:00 in the video.
[http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x203cgj_pierre-sprey-co-
des...](http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x203cgj_pierre-sprey-co-designer-
of-f16-a10-explains-why-the-f35-will-not-cut-it-on-the-modern-
battlefield_tech)

~~~
TeMPOraL
Isn't stealth pretty much defeated for the last 40 years? I recall reading
that Soviet ground radars were perfectly capable of detecting US stealth
planes, as well as there being a crash of a stealth plane which was then
recovered by the enemies of US.

~~~
milspec
Stealth is not a boolean property. What you can do on the ground with giant
arrays of huge antennas and/or supercomputers is way ahead of what can be done
in a fighter plane, and that is way ahead of what can be done in the seeker of
a small-diameter missile.

~~~
TeMPOraL
True, although today all three often constantly talk to one another.

------
DanielBMarkham
“The flying qualities in the blended region...were not intuitive or
favorable.”

God, I love bureaucrat-talk. It's a pig. A trillion-dollar pig. But that
doesn't mean we can't put lipstick on it!

Last time this came up on HN, somebody recommended reading about the life of
John Boyd. For those of you interested in how large systems of people operate,
how the Pentagon ends up with bad airplanes, principles of organization
change, and the philosophy of strategic planning? Go read as much as you can.
Boyd was no Sun Tzu, but he significantly advanced the state-of-the art in a
bunch of seemingly unrelated fields. I have a feeling we'll be parsing some of
his stuff over the next few decades.

Aside from providing promotions to large sections of the officer core and
gainful employment to many large defense contractors in various districts of
various politicians, I'm not sure what the F-35 is actually for. It's like the
space shuttle: it's supposed to do so many contradictory things at the same
time that it doesn't seem to do any of them well.

In fairness, the Osprey tilt-rotor had a lot of the same type of procurement
and delivery problems. Anybody remember ring vortex state? But the Osprey at
least had somewhere it was going: take a squad of marines or special operators
far inland as fast as an airplane without using runways at either end. It
looks like the Osprey is turning the corner and can finally deliver the goods.

Not so much with the F-35.

I'm not sure what to do with the program now. My instinct says keep the close
air support and air superiority fighters we have and concentrate on the F-35's
stealth capabilities. But strategically, once somebody figures out how to use
passive radiation to paint and plot airborne targets? The stealth game is up.
Required computing power may be a decade or two away, but it's well within the
expected lifetime of the airframe. I think maybe you just bail out on the
whole thing and go back to strategy school.

------
deanCommie
Can't believe noone posted yet [this clip from Pentagon
Wars]([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXQ2lO3ieBA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXQ2lO3ieBA))
about the clusterfuck that was the Bradley Fighting Vehicle.

~~~
tlrobinson
It gets posted every time the F-35 is mentioned on Hacker News.

But yes, very appropriate.

------
wiseignorant
what if all this talk about the f-35 being crap has to do with some sort of
russian propaganda aimed at shaping the public opinion in the west, which
should eventually pressure the politicians to drop the idea of buying the
f-35. Because what the "Internet Age" has taught me is that the world is not
short of suckers, and russian propaganda knows it. Think of it! Putin would
have a much better sleep at night if the American allies and NATO members
didn't have a stealth fighter/bomber able to penetrate the enemy lines without
much problems and hitting the targets with high precision. The idea of f-35
and other stealth planes is to reduce some "costs", like political cost, while
still exercising your geo-political control. For instance, the Europeans
countries would never send a plane to east Ukraine if there is a chance it
might be shot down. Imagine a European Prime Minister saying: "we sent a
couple of ours f-35s, bombed the rebels, came back and opened the door for the
Ukrainian army to reunify the country and bring peace"; to instead saying: "we
sent a bunch of planes, some where shot down, some of our men were killed and
the situation in east Ukraine is still not defined". The second sentence could
translate into: "shit! I could lose the next election". The russians might not
admit it in public, but they are always scared about the western military
superiority and economic power, particularly the USA. (Yes, I said economic
power, don't fall for the BRICS bullshit, the economic fragility of these
countries is nothing compared to the fragility, that of course exists, in the
developed nations). They (russians) have their own stealth fighter project,
the T-50, that seems not to be working properly, besides the fact they are
short of money and had to drop the number of planes they initially planed to
build for the Russian air force from 52 to just 12 now. Meanwhile the f-35 is
about to hit the skies, and the Americans already have almost two hundred f-22
and and 20 B-2 on top of 10 nuclear powered carriers with a bunch of f-18. So,
I say it again, it wouldn't be surprising if the russian propaganda wants to
shape public opinion to at least delay the acquisition of advanced stealth
fighters/bombers by NATO members.

~~~
drzaiusapelord
This. Autocratic nations ability to shape public opinion has never been so
easy. It was interesting to see /r/worldnews on Reddit go from a milquetoast
forum into one of the internet's leading pro-Putin platforms overnight once
Crimea was annexed. Suddenly all these guys with broken english were giving
the same talking points. Now dumb white kids from the suburbs think Putin is
some wonderful chap and NATO being on par with Hitler.

Its incredible how well propaganda works. We have one opinion from one test
here and suddenly everyone is convinced that the F-35 can't rule the skies. It
will dominate many roles trivially and that's something China, Russia, and
Iran don't like to hear. Anything they can do to make Americans hate their
military and our fighting men is great for them, because their citizens are
all in lockstep about defeating us and imposing autocratic dictatorships on
their neighbors.

~~~
dragonwriter
> We have one opinion from one test here and suddenly everyone is convinced
> that the F-35 can't rule the skies.

This is _not_ the first negative information regarding the F-35, just the
latest piece in a litany.

> Anything they can do to make Americans hate their military and our fighting
> men

Distrust of a particular piece of hardware is not hating the military or the
"fighting men" in the military. Heck, often, that's a position that is
_shared_ with the military, or at least the "fighting men", who often are not
enamored of the equipment that the politicians decide to purchase for them.

------
oflordal
Here is a video of Pierre Spray (one of the F-16 designers) discussing the
same thing:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxDSiwqM2nw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxDSiwqM2nw)

------
CookieCutter2
The Phantom F4 had no main gun because everyone thought there were no
dogfighst but only missle fights. Reality was different and they added a
vulcan gun.

The F35 is not designed for dogfights but long range missle fights and
stealth.

~~~
somerandomone
But unlike F4, F35 has a main gun, and I think that demonstrates the dogfight
doctrine still has its way. Unfortunately that gun has its own problem [1].

[1] [http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/31/new-u-s-
ste...](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/31/new-u-s-stealth-jet-
can-t-fire-its-gun-until-2019.html)

------
sudioStudio64
DOD spending is more about sustaining the companies in its orbit than
producing superior solutions.

1 Trillion dollars for a shit plane...but we can't afford to take care of the
veterans and retirees.

------
merpnderp
Has anyone thought of how many F-18 SuperHornets could have been purchased
with the F-35's $1trillion in funding, or how long they could have been
operated? Or How little the F-18 Advanced Hornet retrofits actually cost?
Never mind that the SuperHornet will be cheaper to operate and will have 1/6th
the unit cost even after development is over.

Plus, the F-18 SuperHornet will never be accused of not being able to
dogfight.

------
lifeformed
Is this program literally the biggest waste of money of all time?

~~~
Tloewald
It's hard to beat unnecessary wars:

[http://cironline.org/sites/default/files/legacy/files/June20...](http://cironline.org/sites/default/files/legacy/files/June2010CRScostofuswars.pdf)

According to the linked article, Iraq and Afghanistan cost over $1T (and this
was as of 2011 and does not include things like health care, replacing
degraded equipment, etc.) and the Vietnam war cost $738B.

It may be the first time a weapon system would qualify as a folly by itself
(per _The March of Folly_ , by Barbara Tuchman):

* Perceived as counter-productive in its own time (not just hindsight)

* Has clear alternatives

* Decision made by a group, not a single individual

It's generally worth noting that Tuchman's follies, and more recent cases that
clearly fit her criteria (Iraq and the F35) seem to be follies in a fractal
sense: you can just drill down and down and see more stupid as you go -- e.g.
given you are fixated on going into Iraq, perhaps you include the State
Department in the planning? Nope. Listen to your most experienced military
leaders? Nope. At least make use of comprehensive existing plans for invasion?
Nope. And on and on. With the JSF there are so many bad decisions bundled into
the thing that it's hard to know where to start.

------
YesThatTom2
I'm sure the military contractors that profited from this contract don't
consider it a failure.

------
Supersaiyan_IV
This is what you get for choosing which aircraft to sponsor by going by looks.
Boeing's alternative had the greatest manoeuvrability, and now the hay is
beginning to stick out of their shoes, as they slowly admit that F-35 isn't as
good as we were led to believe.

~~~
amarraja
The Boeing wasn't without its issues however. The main reason it lost to
Lockheed was the thrust vectoring used for STOVL was flawed and could cause
the engine to overheat which was a large showstopper. Funnly enough, I
recently read about F35 overheating while in STOVL as well!

------
admax88q
The F-35 program is basically just government stimulus spending disguised as
something else.

~~~
drjesusphd
As is almost the entire DoD budget.

------
jleyank
Sounds like they've recreated the F-111, with VTOL thrown in. One would think
that procurement/design history would be a mandatory study, but they
continually recapitulate it. Guess it's easier to shovel out the money this
way?

Given the design freedom with multiple airframes, I would think it quite hard
to outdo such divergent airplanes as the F-16 and A-10. Unless the spare-part
situation is crippling, conservative design would be to tailor to individual
roles. Call it a Unix approach to air combat?

------
bayesianhorse
The lesson here is that it is really hard to manage projects like the JSF
program.

Cost, conflicting interests, technical challenges and secrecy requirements in
the worst possible package.

------
MikeNomad
Unfortunately, the F-35 was predicted long ago in John Boyd's biography (or
look up Pierre Sprey, which will bring you back to Boyd).

~~~
gshubert17
Robert Coram's biography of John Boyd is very good.

[http://www.amazon.com/Boyd-The-Fighter-Pilot-
Changed/dp/0316...](http://www.amazon.com/Boyd-The-Fighter-Pilot-
Changed/dp/0316796883)

------
hopeless
I wonder how the F-35 performs against other current generation fighters like
the Eurofighter or Saab Gripen. And considering the costs, it would need to be
several times better, which I doubt. I suspect both aircraft could out-
manoeuvre it.

But then the F-35 is supposed to be stealthy so might be able to attack from a
distance with relative impunity.

------
mikhailfranco
It's hard to imagine how so much money has been wasted developing such a
mediocre aircraft. I'm not usually a conspiracy theorist, but maybe the F-35
does not exist, and all the money has actually been well spent on amazingly
stealthy next-generation supersonic drone fleets which nobody has been able to
see?!

------
mhomde
Isn't this old news? I remember watching this interesting diatribe from Pierre
Osprey (designer of the F-16 & A-10 Warthog airplane)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQB4W8C0rZI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQB4W8C0rZI)

------
zobzu
"“The helmet was too large for the space inside the canopy to adequately see
behind the aircraft.”"

you can't see behind the F35 - even if you turn your head. there's a rear view
camera because of that. The central fan is in the way.

That's odd a pilot says he can't turn his head and see well.

------
protomyth
Well, we did build the F-22 as the air supremacy fighter. Sadly, the much
maligned F-22 has actually been used in combat to bomb a ground target[1]. I
find it interesting that the F-22 seems to have gotten over most of its
teething problems, but the F-35 still cannot fire its gun (needs a new
software)[2]. Even when it can fire its gun, it will only have ammo for 4
seconds of firing (2 bursts)[3].

I think the close combat air support / tactical role should be given back to
the Army (changing Johnson-McConnell agreement of 1966[4] and Key West
Agreement[5]) and the Air Force can deal with strategic bombing and air
dominance.

The Air Force has been trying to get rid of the A-10 with various excuses, but
the GAO recently said their budget reason were bunk[6]. They just don't want
the job and their loiter time of their replacements is pathetic.

1)
[http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/09/23/syria-a...](http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/09/23/syria-
air-strikes-f-22-raptor/16105291/)

2) [http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/air-
space/strike/20...](http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/air-
space/strike/2015/01/07/f35-gun-on-track/21401907/)
[http://www.dodbuzz.com/2015/01/08/pentagon-f-35-gun-will-
fir...](http://www.dodbuzz.com/2015/01/08/pentagon-f-35-gun-will-fire-
in-2017/)

3) [http://defensetech.org/2015/01/02/a-tale-of-two-gatling-
guns...](http://defensetech.org/2015/01/02/a-tale-of-two-gatling-
guns-f-35-vs-a-10/)

4) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnson-
McConnell_agreement_of...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnson-
McConnell_agreement_of_1966)

5)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_West_Agreement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_West_Agreement)

6)
[http://www.airforcetimes.com/story/military/2015/06/25/gao-r...](http://www.airforcetimes.com/story/military/2015/06/25/gao-
report-air-force-a10-justification/29285967/)

------
allengeorge
Keep in mind that the headline number (1 trillion dollars) _includes_ the cost
to service 2000 F-35 over 50 years. The amount spent on R&D and building it is
in the (large, but not as eye-watering) 300 billion dollar range.

------
inglor
Here is the relevant software engineering term for relevance
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_by_committee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_by_committee)

------
ongoodie
In the full-scale war the fighter planes are useless cause the air bases and
carriers will be nuked out in the first hour. So the reality is that the
planes are not made for fights, they are made for parades.

~~~
thrownaway2424
Quite. Carriers are useless in a war of equals. They will be at the bottom of
the ocean in the opening minutes of the war.

But they are brilliant against barbarians, which seem to be our main enemy
these days.

~~~
tim333
In a full scale nuclear war most things would be useless. The US however has
managed to use it's planes a fair bit since WW2 though and not just for
parades.

------
Shivetya
the best we can hope is the turns out so bad it accelerates the move to drones
and their lower costs replacing manned fighter and even bomber craft.

While there is some romanticism still attached to fighter pilots the truth is
in this day and age their relevance is dropping like a rock and there is
little need to put pilots into danger when a drone can do the same.

plus drones can be created to do all sorts of maneuvers human pilots could
never do... let alone reduce the size of the craft to make it less visible

------
stretchwithme
Yes, but it really shines as a pork barrel generator.

I'd rather see a swarm of drones one tenth the size and one twentieth the
price fight our dog fights.

------
adamnemecek
Do you guys think that they will eventually scrap the program and open source
this future failed startup?

~~~
somerandomone
Nah, they will just sweep it under the rug in the name of national security.
Not even a post-mortem because that would put some highly ranked people whom
about to become the advisors of the defense industry on the grilling fire.

~~~
adamnemecek
I should use /s next time.

------
JustSomeNobody
Come on. They put this up against a 16. Did _anyone_ believe the 16 couldn't
out maneuver the 35?

------
hglman
Drones. Thats why this doesn't matter.

------
justwannasing
Only skimmed the article but it looks like it's, "F-35 can't dogfight"
followed by a lot of author opinions and rants. My question is, was the F-35
created to ever be put into a situation where it would be in a dogfight? B-1
bombers can't dogfight either.

It seems like he's pretending that we have, or will have, no other fighter
jets remaining.

~~~
onion2k
_My question is, was the F-35 created to ever be put into a situation where it
would be in a dogfight?_

Yes. It was created to be a multirole fighter - including air superiority.

------
curiously
They should really start making memes of the F-35.

Or maybe even a motivational picture of McNamara, with satirical captions.

------
bitmapbrother
The problem with the F-35 is that it's a jack of all trades and master of
none. Put it up against a more nimble and agile fighter it'll lose in a
dogfight every single time due to its limited aerodynamic operating range. So,
what's the real purpose of the F-35? To support the military industrial
complex, of course.

------
shomyo
Who cares about dogfight when you only bombing of civilians.

------
vidoc
".. cost the United States control of the air."

when you think about the current situation in Irak, one might argue that it
would not necessarily be a bad thing.

~~~
rwallace
Iraq was a clusterfuck, there's no doubt about that, but the current situation
there is that American aircraft are among the few things keeping a whole lot
more people from being enslaved or murdered by the Isis thugs. So while there
are quite a few aspects of US government policy that I disagree with, at the
end of the day, I pretty much do want them to keep control of the air, yes.

------
majormajor
It's not at all what it's built for. I'd be interested in seeing articles
critiquing it's designed mission (or more reporting on the software woes,
which would be very relevant here), since I'm no military strategy expert, but
reports like this seem rather useless. Do we expect to be doing a lot of
WWI/WWII-style close-range air fighting?

EDIT: this, for instance, seems much more interesting:
[http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/02/22/us-navy-
to-...](http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/02/22/us-navy-to-lockheed-
martins-f-35-stealth-fighter-w.aspx)

But it's hard to see how dogfighting prowess would be any help against long-
range radar systems that can detect it before being in range.

~~~
trhway
while obviously nobody is planning to have dogfights, one can imagine 2
stealth fighters that no missile can lock onto while pilots can actually see
each others planes - times for good old school dogfight :)

(the probably exception for missiles is IR missiles - as long as you can get
behind the enemy plane it would probably be able to lock onto it, even on the
stealth one, and trying to get behind each other means pretty much dogfight
again. Or similarly, say regular missile can lock onto a stealth plane only
from much closer distance - from behind would be much more preferable position
as stealth planes are less stealthier from that direction and at close
distance the target plane has much less chances to shake off the incoming from
behind missile)

~~~
ongoodie
Even SU-27 had passive locking. If pilot can see, electronics can as well.

