The F-35: Better Than You Think

The Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II is surrounded by controversy regarding not only it's potential capabilities in battle, but also its affordability. Taken out of context, this is true - however, in today's episode, we take a sledgehammer to those allegations in order to prove that the F35 is more capable than you'd think.

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[Evil.Totoro]

For a historical context both the F-16 and F/A-18, along with many other fighters were heavily criticized when they entered service. But as we know now both fighter are highly successful designs.

[davidrishel]

I'm a retired US Navy Officer and I'd love to share a comment and a suggestion for a new show. Not only is the F-35 a really good plane--on its own--but I'd suggest that it is the most revolutionary naval aircraft in history, by a large margin. The Naval variant of the F-35, with VSTOL technology, is so good and so versatile that it has redefined naval warfare. Before the F-35, navies with jump-deck carriers were limited to planes like the Harrier. They were super cool for their time (the 1970's) but were slow, had limited range and were no match for even a 1960's F-4 (ask the RN about the fun they had in the Falklands). With the Harrier, modern navies could have a fixed wing air arm on paper, but God help them if they ever encountered a real air force. The F-35, on the other hand, can take off from a jump deck and actually perform like a real fighter. Even better, it can use it's VSTOL capability to take off and land from a completely flat deck of an amphibious ship or even a large destroyer! Think about that. Any navy with F-35's and a large, flat deck ship suddenly has a pretty capable fixed wing fighter force. Now, they use a lot of fuel taking off and landing like that, and there are some other performance limitations, but they are still pretty damn good, fixed wing, stealth, 5th generation planes. Suddenly, Australia, Spain, The Netherlands, Japan, Good Korea (South Korea), and any other US ally with a large flat decked amphibious ship potentially has a small but very powerful naval air force. This changes everything.

[scottmeredith]

A friend of mine is an F 35 pilot and over the course of a 10 day backpacking trip I heard numerous tales of its use in combat and his general opinions of it. Suffice to say, he raved about this aircraft and loves flying it.

[axson]

"If you asked the consumer what they wanted, they'd have just asked for faster horses" -Henry Ford

[Sturgeonmeister]

I remember when the F-15 was starting to come online and critics, including members of Congress, complained that it had only a single mission, it was too expensive, and too complicated for the average maintainer to work on. The F-15 has come a long way and is still a potent aircraft.

[FPVQuadModz]

Another piece of missing context from the "F-35 cant dogfight" report is that it was very early days of its flight control software package. This software was missing critical parameters regarding 'energy management' which defines best turning radius and speed parameters for the computers to target during dogfighting. Meaning, the F35 is now much better at 'pointing its nose'. That said, its clearly not designed as an air superiority fighter. As a multi role fighter its designed to replace f-16's and f-18's. F-22's and in due time, the NGAD will fill the air dominance role.

[NickyTheGaymer]

Holy crap, fact boi. A 2-part series with debate topics?! Brilliant! Can't wait for part 2. This is the type of commentary that's dope with modern tech

[davidtucker]

due to the many published articles knocking the F-35 I now realize that I have completely misunderstood what an F-35 really is all about. Thanks Simon as I stand corrected now

[MrKronikDeception]

"F-35 can't dogfight" is as ridiculous as "military sniper would lose in a boxing match against former heavyweight champion George Foreman."

[mattmatt]

When you get old enough, as a military aviation enthusiast, you remember how EVERY new weapons system ever introduced has the same challenges and commentary. Even today new systems and capability are being added, worldwide, to systems that have served for a while.

[alexcraig]

If I'm not mistaken, the air combat manueverability test was performed at a very early stage in the f35's initial operations, when the airframe was G limited to around a max of 7Gs. It was several years later when they finally approved the f35 to perform to it's max 9G+ limit.

[West_Coast_Mainline]

The f35 can’t destroy a squadron of su57s, because there isn’t a squadron of su57s!

[hawkeye]

Ok, so the complaint in the "F-35 can't dogfight" paper was that it couldn't win against an F-16 attacking from the rear? Neither can an F-16. That scenario is considered the most difficult dogfight out there. So much so that even experienced pilots are expected to lose if jumped from behind.

[dksl]

The whole "dogfighting vs. networking" thing reminds me of the cheesy climax of an action movie where the villain says "And what do you have that I don't?" and the hero(ine) says "I have FRIENDS!" and then the whole team busts in to save the day.

[michaelandcolinspop]

Thank you, Simon. I don’t work for Lockheed but I know this air system very well and it is an absolute monster. The level of built-in system integration is technically and operationally staggering and pilots across all three US services love it, as do the partner nations and FMS customers. So many of the criticisms of this jet are the same that were lobbed at the F-22, F-15 and F/A-18E wrt cost, complexity, and necessity. And critics ignore one of the biggest differences with the Lightning II vs. any other 5th Gen aircraft: It is being produced at a very high rate and is already fielded in substantial numbers, completely flipping the common belief that 5th Gen is too unique and too few in number to support the classic war principles of “mass” and “surprise”. This is a jet that can sit way back or get close in big numbers and wreak havoc. And it’s getting better with every production lot.

[Saltfly]

I’ve noticed that the air show f35 demos have become more snappy, showing off the nimbleness of the plane. And it is pretty damn impressive. Even after watching the f16s. It does things well.

[a]

The F-35 is an absolute beast... Also, the idea it can't dogfight was from the test you referenced that was a flight control systems test for the F-35. They were trying to identify the proper settings for the fly-by-wire systems, and the clean F-16 they were flying against was being used as the baseline to compare a "disabled" F-35 against.

[panelman]

As a current Lockheed Martin employee working on the F-35, I approve of this excellent video! Thanks to the Host & Writers.

[radscientist]

It would seem people have forgotten to ask two simple questions.

What was it designed to do?
Does it do what it was designed to do?

[aceghost]

I work on the 35 As I have for around 8 years now.

I've seen what they can do and the path forward for them in the next ten years of retrofits.

I can tell you with upmost certainty, that where we did go wrong with some of the purchasing aspects, and some of the issues of the program as a whole (not to get too specific but many of the support programs have been worked on through the length of the program, or the Airforce is currently going in a different direction)

The F35 was not a waste, and 5th gen as a whole is leagues above any generation prior.

The problem I think where people have, was the marketing of Lockheed for proposed uses as a multirole fighter.

Also the if you have not worked on Jets, you don't know that the program that the jet comes with, upon purchasing is so much more than just the bird. (it's support for parts, it's engineer access, pilot/maintenance training, AGE, and external parts, it's warranty coverage, it's future upgrade potential, it's the tracking of maintenance across the fleet, and so so much more.)

It is phenomenally good at the role we currently use it for. I've been to red flag in Vegas and AK, and have put my bird up and seen the numbers it comes down with. Some of which are in the numbers of 18 to 1 and that's against 16s and 22s with more experienced pilots

I've seen the numbers other fighters come down with. 90% of the media that you hear on the 35 is people who have not ever stood even near one.

There are negatives, and from a person who has been in the program, has done nose to tail maintenance on avionics, crew Cheif, fuels, LO, weapons, is a Craftsman ( or 7 level that oversees many of the maintenance from others now) I can say that you can make a case that the negatives could out way the positives.

But as far as the role as it actually preforms, it is the best bird any country has ever put in the air.