(Luft) Lockheed Martin F-35 - Lightning II

[Kantilene]

Mai, ich habe etwas schönes für euch gefunden. Ein US-Pilot mit Erfahrungen in der F-15, F-16 und Mig-29 (war als Austauchpilot in Laage bei den deutschen Mig-29) spricht über die F-35:

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Will the F-35's sensor fusion and low observability (stealth) allow it to overcome its lackluster maneuverability and kinetic performance against future enemies?

I can't answer this one. I can ask, "Why did they make it such a pig?"

Aber es geht weiter:

If you had to fly any fighter into an air combat arena today, including an operational F-35A as an option, what would it be?

The F-22. It's a better jet than the F-35. It can carry at least as much, further and faster. If it was up to me I'd cancel the F-35 and start building more Raptors. A common counter to that is the cost to restart the F-22 assembly line. How much does one pig cost? Another is that the F-35 program is too far along. Yep, let's just keep paying for a poorly-managed, overly expensive fighter that has three versions that make any one version less than it could be. Can you say F-111? That the F-35's avionics are better than the F-22's; how about a Raptor upgrade? I'd also build more advanced versions of the F-15 and F-16.

Ach ja, und ist der Dogfight tot?

With AESA radars, more effective BVR missiles, an increasingly networked battlespace, HOBS missiles and high-end sensor fusion now a reality, is the dogfight finally a relic of the past?

This has been an assumption by so-called experts since the 1950s. Unfortunately, these experts have never flown fighters and we've proven many times since that aircraft will get into the visual arena even with sophisticated BVR sensors and weapons. We build better BVR weapons and our adversaries build better radar jammers. And it goes around and around and around. Networks can be jammed and/or compromised. So yes, dogfighting is not dead.