That wasn't a trial of air-to-air combat. It was a control law test of the F-35. An F-16 aircraft, which was already being used during the mission as a "chase" aircraft for test execution safety reasons, was also used by the F-35 pilot as a visual reference.
There was no coverup. Rather, the reporter who was sent the document and wrote about it simply didn't have the engineering knowledge to understand what he was reading, nor did he ask anyone experienced with flight testing to review what he had been sent and what he had written.
The document was the opinion of the F-35 pilot just to be clear. Here's a direct quote from the pilot:
> The helmet was too large for the space inside the canopy to adequately see behind the aircraft. There are multiple occasions when the bandit would've been visible (not blocked by the seat) but the helmet prevented getting in a position to see him
#
> The F-35 was at a distinct energy disadvantage in a turning fight and operators would quickly learn that it isn't an ideal regime.
I think you are making some of the same mistakes as the author of the piece you linked to. You are not understanding the context of the whole test, nor are you reading all of the pilot's observations.
Look at what the pilot says about pitch rate, and I'll pick out the part that makes all the difference. Brackets and emphasis mine:
"Insufficient pitch rate exacerbated the lack of EM. Energy deficit to the bandit would increase over time. Therefore there were multiple occasions where it would have been tactically sound to accept excessive energy loss in order to achieve a fleeting WEZ. [Weapon Engagement Zone]. The CLAW [Control Law] prevented such shot opportunities (and hindered defeating shots)."
In other words, the control laws prevented him from doing what he wanted. But, as he knows, because he's helped develop the aircraft, the control laws are trying to be conservative. Therefore, in his conclusions and recommendations, he says:
"Consider increasing alpha onset." and "Consider increasing pilot yaw rate control authority".
These fixes were put in the CLAW really quickly.
As for your jab about "pilots themselves aren't qualified to criticize the program either", well, look, the reporter didn't do his due diligence. You can criticize anything you like, but when you don't do the work to make your criticisms informed by relevant experience and knowledge, you're just another guy with an opinion and a blog.
> But, as he knows, because he's helped develop the aircraft, the control laws are trying to be conservative.
And are based on the physical construction of the aircraft, which is why they increased the size of the control surfaces after this.
> You can criticize anything you like, but when you don't do the work to make your criticisms informed by relevant experience and knowledge, you're just another guy with an opinion and a blog.
According to you nobody that criticizes the F-35 sacred cow does their due diligence. You paint people one of two ways: You either think the F-35 is wonderful and thus are informed, or you don't know anything.
I also love how you keep going back to an article that isn't even relevant in this thread, nobody brought it up, nobody has linked it, and yet you're strawman-ing this mysterious article to death as a defense of the pilot's own criticism's of the F-35 in 2015.
> You yourself linked the article that I'm referring to, and you mentioned it originally.
I haven't linked to any article like what you're referring to, nor did I reference it. I linked to the pilot's original mission report, I also referenced the same report. You seem to be attacking some editorial, and since you haven't linked it, nobody knows which one.
> And I am informed on the F-35 and don't think it's wonderful, but I don't think it's a horrible piece of garbage, either.
Nobody was claiming it was a "horrible piece of garbage."
Exactly. Which is nothing but the pilot's report un-editorialized. You've been attacking some strawman editorial all throughout this thread that nobody linked or referenced here.
Could you explain this, or point me to a link? I don't know the term and I'm having trouble searching it since the words are so common, but I'd love to see a proper breakdown of what was being tested.
Sure. The F-35 is a "fly-by-wire" aircraft, which means that computers are required to direct the movements of the control surfaces. The engineering and mathematics here is not my area (my flight test experience lies in data acquisition, instrumentation, and data analysis/reduction) but I do know that the computers run software -- control laws -- that take the pilot's instructions as inputs, observe the dynamics of the airplane, and issue control commands to the surfaces to execute the inputs.
Plus they could have released anything that helped make the aircraft look less deficient, they didn't. Just tried to hide the test and pretend it didn't occur.
Tried to cover it up? It's an unclassified report from the test pilot. Not really intended for public disclosure, but this isn't the Pentagon Papers. And the author of the article has an axe to grind against almost all of the military. He left out most of the in that mitigated the story he's been pushing for a decade.
"In a preemptive strike, Red launched a massive salvo of cruise missiles that overwhelmed the Blue forces' electronic sensors and destroyed sixteen warships. This included one aircraft carrier, ten cruisers and five of six amphibious ships. An equivalent success in a real conflict would have resulted in the deaths of over 20,000 service personnel. Soon after the cruise missile offensive, another significant portion of Blue's navy was "sunk" by an armada of small Red boats, which carried out both conventional and suicide attacks that capitalized on Blue's inability to detect them as well as expected.
At this point, the exercise was suspended, Blue's ships were "re-floated", and the rules of engagement were changed; this was later justified by General Peter Pace as follows: "You kill me in the first day and I sit there for the next 13 days doing nothing, or you put me back to life and you get 13 more days' worth of experiment out of me. Which is a better way to do it?" After the reset, both sides were ordered to follow predetermined plans of action.
After the war game was restarted, its participants were forced to follow a script drafted to ensure a Blue Force victory. Among other rules imposed by this script, Red Force was ordered to turn on their anti-aircraft radar in order for them to be destroyed, and was not allowed to shoot down any of the aircraft bringing Blue Force troops ashore. Van Riper also claimed that exercise officials denied him the opportunity to use his own tactics and ideas against Blue Force, and that they also ordered Red Force not to use certain weapons systems against Blue Force and even ordered the location of Red Force units to be revealed.
This led to accusations that the war game had turned from an honest, open, free playtest of U.S. war-fighting capabilities into a rigidly controlled and scripted exercise intended to end in an overwhelming U.S. victory, alleging that "$250 million was wasted".
Seems like a faked war exercise to me, seems more like a propaganda exercise.
I am having a difficult time understanding how you're taking the fact that they did a test and got an outcome, and concluding therefore that they "faked" the test.
Let me try an analogy to explain my viewpoint. Let's say I'm testing pre-alpha UI with some users. In the first phase, I give them no explicit training or instruction on the software because I want to see, as a whole, how the thing holds up holistically. Let's further say that, during that first phase, they struggle with the menu system or how to enter commands. Okay, noted. But I still need to check various wizards and dialogs, and I've already brought all these testers in. So instead of sending everyone home while I fix the main menu/command bar/whatever, I construct and direct situations so that all the aspects of the UI are exposed to the user for testing. "Go here and click the arrow-into-a-box button to save the file." "Oh, that's what that is? How come it isn't a normal save button?" "Sorry about that, but go ahead and do that and then see how it goes from there." "Okay!"
Would you similarly conclude that I "faked" the test? Do you think the better solution would be to send everyone home? Or just have them twiddle their thumbs for the entire length of the exercise?
It seems quite clear, to me, that the correct course of action is to keep testing. Continue to test and try various components of doctrine to see how they hold up. The fact that this Red Team didn't want to use anti-air radar doesn't mean we should waste the opportunity to test our doctrine on how to counter it.
Yes. That is how these things work. Anything less would be irresponsible.
I feel like we're talking past each other. I don't understand your point of view.
Let's say I'm doing a platoon-sized exercise over the course of two weeks. I've been training my platoon on some basic maneuvers like fixing and flanking, rushing machine gun nests, some patrolling, etc.
The first night, the Red platoon ambushes my Blue platoon while they're on patrol. Red platoon does a great job thinking on their feet, Blue assaulted through the ambush per doctrine and did a good job of it, but Red platoon knew the doctrine too and exploited a weakness.
Got it. Red won. However, we still need Blue to get some experience patrolling, and we definitely need them to have experience reacting to a linear ambush like they'll be facing in a couple months when we deploy. The fact that the Red team used a complex ambush with an IED and an extra machine gun oriented down the MSR is irrelevant. We still need to make sure the SOP works and that Blue can execute it. So I order Red team to use some linear ambushes to see how Blue does.
Explain to me how this is a fake test. Explain to me how this is somehow a waste of taxpayer money, or training time, or pro-Blue-platoon propaganda. Because to me it sure as heck looks exactly like what you should do in an exercise.
Is it really a boondoggle though? I mean, it keeps the defense industry rolling, gives the military something to fly, politicians and the media something to talk about, and it's more or less capable of bombing third worlders who can't effectively shoot back. Did the people who green lit it, paid for it, and made it honestly expect anything more?
> it keeps the defense industry rolling, gives the military something to fly, politicians and the media something to talk about, and it's more or less capable of bombing third worlders who can't effectively shoot back
That sounds like the literal definition of a boondoggle.
"work or activity that is wasteful or pointless but gives the appearance of having value."
