The F-35/F-16 Dogfight Debacle

The news has been running around for a number of days.  I've not posted it because I've been trying to stick to my blog post draw down schedule and there are other potential topics which are not getting as much "air time" in the blogosphere.  However, here's where I give in.

David Axe, a complete F-35 hater and then some, was passed a report on how badly a F-35 faired when dogfighting F-16s: it had its lunch eaten and then some.  The fact came out that the plane is really, really underpowered, not to mention has serious ergo problems with the helmet-canopy combo and not to mention canopy-fuselage combo.

There have been several reactions.  Bill Sweetman's response is probably the most all encompassing. It has the best quote about the entire debacle:

“People all need to look at what F-35 really is,” another aviator comments. “A stealth A-7 bomb truck, capable of first-night suppression of enemy air defenses, with limited self-escort. It is, as software-configured right now, not a light air-combat-maneuvering-capable platform. This is what we saw with the early F/A-18E/F blocks: millions of lines of code, and in need of constant update. But, in this case, it’s becoming increasingly easier to rewrite the code laws to allow for those changes.”

Lockheed responded to the whole event by stating dogfighting is obsolete and the F-35 is meant to fire from a distance taking advantage of stealth and long range missiles.

Via Breaking Defense, the US Air Force responded.  The short version is the F-35 is not an F-16 and should not be seen as such.  It is not a dogfighter.  If you need a dogfight, you send in...wait for it...an F-22.  Y'know, that fighter we only bought 180 odd because we didn't need it.  Oops.

Its looking minimally like F-35 needs a new engine.  Wait.  The US Air Force has already started that: its called ADVENT.