F-35: What The Pilots Say

[zero-one]

Woah 6- 7 Gs without G suits? I don't know about that. I've read World war 2 planes like the Mustang and Spitfire pulling about 6Gs but thats the absolute highest for that era. When fighters started to return to combat agility, the F-14A had a limit of just 6.5G but was considered the best in the world at that time.

Anyway, Kinematics is what sets fighters apart from any other type of aircraft. Lots of planes have powerful sensors, massive networking capabilities and even stealth. But combine all that to a relatively small aircraft, make it fast and maneuverable and you end up with something that is much harder to shoot down than any other type of airplane. Thats why we can never remove the kinematic aspect from fighter threads, its such a big part of what makes fighters what they are.

[mixelflick]

Woah 6- 7 Gs without G suits? I don't know about that. I've read World war 2 planes like the Mustang and Spitfire pulling about 6Gs but thats the absolute highest for that era. When fighters started to return to combat agility, the F-14A had a limit of just 6.5G but was considered the best in the world at that time.

Anyway, Kinematics is what sets fighters apart from any other type of aircraft. Lots of planes have powerful sensors, massive networking capabilities and even stealth. But combine all that to a relatively small aircraft, make it fast and maneuverable and you end up with something that is much harder to shoot down than any other type of airplane. Thats why we can never remove the kinematic aspect from fighter threads, its such a big part of what makes fighters what they are.

THIS

Unless PCA fundamentally changes the game with no emphasis on speed/turning G's, it'll be a metric wherever fighters are discussed. Honestly, I think it's going to take either one BIG air battle or a full on war to cement the fact that fighters shouldn't be dogfighting. Not saying it can't happen, am saying it hasn't happened yet.

Russia still builds jets to dogfight, China does too. We have in the past, and seem to be in transition to a force that won't, or doesn't want to. I also think design teams don't want to have egg on their face if they build a whiz bang fighter that can't dogfight, then winds up in one and gets shot down.

Then again, they design to spec/requirements. Someone at DoD is going to have to have the courage to make that call..

[madrat]

Dogfighting mostly resulted in standoffs, not kills. Most kills were opportunity kills, catch the enemy unaware. Even during Vietnam, this truth did not evaporate. Communist planes were most dangerous fling out from the cover of clouds and jamming. Once recognized the usual result was not necessarily unit kills against the MiGs. And the U.S. fighters enjoyed significant energy and endurance advantages, not maneuverability advantages. You really have to have energy and endurance advantages once both sides are aware of the engagement. Otherwise anytime you catch an enemy unaware you have the greatest chance for victory.

[zero-one]

Russia still builds jets to dogfight, China does too. We have in the past, and seem to be in transition to a force that won't, or doesn't want to. I also think design teams don't want to have egg on their face if they build a whiz bang fighter that can't dogfight, then winds up in one and gets shot down.

I agree with your initial points but not so much with this one. These are the kinds of statements that make American aircraft look like they are less capable in WVR than Russian/Chinese aircraft.

I often hear Indians say that American aircraft are inherently less capable in a dogfight because of the American belief that they will never have to dogfight due to Stealth. I have shot down these statements left and right.

Everyone tries to make their fighter have the best of both worlds. BVR and WVR. The Russians/Chinese don't have the technological advancements of the US so they try a different approach for BVR in the form of ram jet powered BVRAAMs and integrated IRST systems as well as fighters with massive radars.
its not true that Russians focus on WVR, it only looks that way because they have no choice, shooting a stealth fighter at BVR ranges is nearly impossible so they're best bet is to close in and hope for the best.

The US on the other hand continues to invest in very high performance engines to continue their E-M advantage over the Russians. If you look at the most advanced fighters between the US, Russia and China. Tell me which group would have the most advantage in a dogfight.

USA
F-22
F-35
F/A-18E
F-15X
F-16V

Russia
Su-57
Su-35
Su-30
Su-27SM3
Mig-35

China
J-20
J-16
J-11
J-10

I'd say team USA has a pretty commanding lead in dogfighting capabilities just on aircraft performance alone.
I'm not saying they will want to dogfight because no one does, even the Russians don't want to dogfight. But if it came to that, American fighters are built to be better dog fighters than anyone else's fighters. By the way I'm not an American so this isn't nationalistic chest thumping.

[mixelflick]

We'll probably be crucified for speaking about dogfighting but oh well...

I understand and agree with your point. Because of superior engines, American aircraft will have the E-M advantage. Somehow though (probably the youtube effect), Russian fighters are judged superior WVR. Up until just recently, they certainly did the flippity flop thing more convincingly. Most people will look at this and think, "OMG, no other aircraft stands a chance". Whereas in reality, neither aircraft really stands a chance given dogfights will in all likelihood be mutual kill events.

100% agree Russians will crow about dogfights simply because they don't do the BVR thing very well, and their stealth technology just isn't there. They have access to the same data we do though, showing mostly BVR kills over the past 25 years. They know, deep down what that data means.

But they need to sell airplanes too, and can't really point to their air to air combat record. Youtube has been their great equalizer, as it dramatically magnifies the perception that airshow tumblers = the best.

[zero-one]

We'll probably be crucified for speaking about dogfighting but oh well...

we survived

Anyway, I'd like to add, I think some of the things that are intended for BVR superiority end up being useful in WVR as well.
Internal weapons bays for VLO, ended up giving you 0 parasitic drag.

high alpha capability which I'm convinced is for high Inst turns, useful for both BVR and WVR.

Not sure how accurate this is, but DCS seems to make it look like BVR involves far more maneuvering than most people think.
To pilots out there, do BVR tactics really involve this much high energy maneuvering?
Rather, Is maneuverability really relevant in BVR combat

[mixelflick]

We'll probably be crucified for speaking about dogfighting but oh well...

we survived

Anyway, I'd like to add, I think some of the things that are intended for BVR superiority end up being useful in WVR as well.
Internal weapons bays for VLO, ended up giving you 0 parasitic drag.

high alpha capability which I'm convinced is for high Inst turns, useful for both BVR and WVR.

Not sure how accurate this is, but DCS seems to make it look like BVR involves far more maneuvering than most people think.
To pilots out there, do BVR tactics really involve this much high energy maneuvering?
Rather, Is maneuverability really relevant in BVR combat

Really good points about certain BVR qualities lending themselves to WVR, esp inst turns. In fact, I think the high inst turns of the new F-35 demo are the most impressive part of the display!

[hornetfinn]

I think F-35 is really exceptional fighter even in WVR situation. It has very good flight performance all around and has excellent nose-pointing ability and very carefree handling according to pilots (even compared to other modern jets). It also has very good acceleration and power, about as good as any according to pilots who have flown jets like F-22 and EF Typhoon. Su-27 derivatives also have good nose-pointing ability, especially the TVC equipped ones. But only Su-35 seem to have the power to quickly accelerate after said maneuvers. Also many of the maneuvers seem to be less controlled than in F-35, F-22 or Super Hornet. That could be my wrong interpretation about them though.

Compared to Russian IR missiles, AIM-9X and ASRAAM are clearly better with much more capable imaging seekers, LOAL and better maneveuverability. Sure R-73 derivatives are still very dangerous missiles, but they are definitely starting to show their age even with upgrades. Not idea about how Chinese missiles compare.

F-35 has EO DAS and the best helmet mounted system in any fighter jet. These (and other sensors and sensor fusion) will make sure that F-35 pilot will have superior SA even in WVR fight compared to any other jet in all conditions. This will be extremely important in real world WVR combat where confusion and ID problems seem to be rather common.

So I don't think Western designers have forgotten WVR combat (or "dogfighting"). For example F-35 seems to have all the tools to be really dangerous even to best WVR machines out there. But it's just a small part of the overall capabilties it has.

[mixelflick]

Well said...

[spazsinbad]

I absolutely knew this would happen based upon my own experience transitioning firstly from a radial prop SLOW trainer to a WWII era first jet fighter trainer to an A4G Skyhawk (fifty years ago now) - WHY WON'T THIS THING GO FASTER!

Visiting the Warlords: An April 2019 Update from the CO of VMFAT-501
29 Apr 2019 Robbin Laird

"...He [Lt. Col. Adam Levine, the CO of VMFAT-501] made the point that the “newbies” had never experienced the much more pilot intensive processing of data which legacy pilots do, expected their machines to work in ways that could facilitate what they wanted to do, but to do them faster.

In other words, they already assumed the new baseline of man-machine interaction and wanted that interaction to speed up.…"

Source: https://sldinfo.com/2019/04/visiting-th ... vmfat-501/

[hornetfinn]

Have to resurrect this thread because of this interview:

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/we-go-in-depth-with-the-navys-first-f-35-squadron-commander

Scott "Intake" Kartvedt has had a remarkable flying career that is still very much evolving. Spurred by seeing Top Gun in theaters as a kid, Kartvedt joined the Navy with dreams of flying fighters and did exactly that. He went on to become a Blue Angel, took his Hornet squadron to war twice, was the first commanding officer of a Navy F-35 squadron, and has gone on to fly some of the most dynamic stunt flying scenes in Top Gun: Maverick. So yeah, "Intake" has his fair share of stories to tell and insights to convey.

About F-35:

Tyler: You blazed a real trail bringing the F-35C into an operational reality for the Navy as the commander of VFA-101, Grim Reapers. That was the first F-35C squadron for the Navy, down at Eglin AFB. What really went into such a massive undertaking? What were the biggest hurdles? And obviously, that aircraft during that time period had tremendous controversy. I'm sure there was pressure to get it where it needed to go. What was that experience like?

Scott: Yeah, the challenge. So I worked in the Pentagon originally as the Requirements and Procurement Officer for the F-35, which is how I got involved with F-35. And at that point, it was massively delayed. A lot of the challenge, the original concept from a design perspective was compatible components between variants, so the A, B, and the C. And then what they found was from a security perspective, there were nine partner nations. All of them had different levels of security that they wanted, or country-specific security features with the airplane.

So what we ran into in the F-35 training centers, I was running the F-35C training squadron, was what if the Israelis came through our training, which they would have to do, but they were going to fly a U.S. F-35C? So it's an American airplane with an Israeli pilot. And if the Brits would have bought Cs, what if there would've been a British instructor instructing an Israeli pilot? I mean, you have all these country challenges. So you multiply that out by nine partner nations. With the A variant, it was astronomical the challenges, because you could have a Korean student in a Turkish airplane being taught by an American instructor, and how do you protect each nation's security features within the software? That was a challenge.

And probably the biggest challenge — I don't know how they ever resolved it. I retired in 2013, but those were, that was the biggest challenge we were working through at the time. Not only the security piece, but the liability you had, because they were centralized in the training centers in Eglin, depending on the variant of airplane we were flying. Foreign student, foreign airplane, U.S. soil, and liability issues were a concern too.

IMO, some strange comments here:

Tyler: How, in your opinion, has the F-35C changed naval aviation, not just when you were in, but since then? What's the feedback you're getting about the aircraft and how it's doing in the fleet?

Scott: It has remarkable capabilities. It is exceptionally behind timeline. The size of the engine and the heat signature of the engine is a bit of a detriment to encountering infrared-seeking defense systems. So I think it was delivered late and it would... It allowed many enemy air defense systems to catch up to, I don't wanna say the stealth technology, because the stealth is radar, but that giant engine creates a pretty big heat plume that can be seen easily.

It has a great electronic attack, electronic protect suite. It has additional capabilities that they're still discovering and what it can do to integrate strike fighter operations. It's just a shame that it took so long for it to materialize.

And then the commonality piece — it didn't really play out. I think that became exceptionally cumbersome. The Air Force has different requirements. The Marines have different requirements. The Navy has different requirements. To build an airplane that they try to make meet all of those requirements is a little bit of a 'horse designed by committee is a camel,' right?

I wonder why he says stealth is radar because stealth definitely also includes IR signature, whole RF signature (including all radio transmissions) and even optical and acoustic signatures. Doesn't F-35 have cooling for engine exhaust and relatively high bypass ratio of the engine should be also beneficial. How is Super Hornet or any other jet any better in this regard?

How exactly did the enemy air defence systems catch up with F-35 heat signature? I don't get this claim at all.

I also wonder why he says that it's "exceptionally behind timeline". I don't get this at all as almost all fighter jets are equally or more behind timeline and F-35 is way more advanced system than pretty much anything to date.

I also don't get how the three versions was cumbersome. I think it would've been far worse if there were three different aircraft for the three services. And how different they would've been anyway? Would they all get different engines, sensors, sensor fusion system, CNI systems, RAM/RAS, weapon systems etc? I really doubt that as it would've been far too costly to develop such aircraft for USN and USMC IMO.

[charlielima223]

Have to resurrect this thread because of this interview:

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/we-go-in-depth-with-the-navys-first-f-35-squadron-commander

I wonder why he says stealth is radar because stealth definitely also includes IR signature, whole RF signature (including all radio transmissions) and even optical and acoustic signatures. Doesn't F-35 have cooling for engine exhaust and relatively high bypass ratio of the engine should be also beneficial. How is Super Hornet or any other jet any better in this regard?

How exactly did the enemy air defence systems catch up with F-35 heat signature? I don't get this claim at all.

I also wonder why he says that it's "exceptionally behind timeline". I don't get this at all as almost all fighter jets are equally or more behind timeline and F-35 is way more advanced system than pretty much anything to date.

I also don't get how the three versions was cumbersome. I think it would've been far worse if there were three different aircraft for the three services. And how different they would've been anyway? Would they all get different engines, sensors, sensor fusion system, CNI systems, RAM/RAS, weapon systems etc? I really doubt that as it would've been far too costly to develop such aircraft for USN and USMC IMO.

Wow what a great read! From his youth of being inspired by the first Topgun to actually flying for Topgun Maverick. His growth as a leader and his combat deployment saving the lives of friendlies during a TIC. His personal views and experiences are very insightful.

I will address some of your concerns hornet through my opinions and assumptions...

First off stealth. Most people who know something about military fighter aircraft often equate stealth purely to the RF spectrum. He mentions a common concern/trend I have been hearing/reading/seeing concerning current and future stealth aircraft; that being the IR signature.
Yes all of us here "know" about the F-35's design to reduce its IR signature (mainly at distance). However the one thing that annoys me is that there is no industry standard (that I have know of) that says...

this aircraft is stealthy in the IR spectrum and all others are to be judged by it

Yes the F-135 is very big and very powerful so of course it will generate alot of heat. How an F-35C in AB compares to a Super Hornet in AB? IDK, I have never seen a side by side comparison. Also to note the F-35 (like Super Hornet) has to use AB to go super sonic and stay there unlike Raptor that can atleast throttle back from AB and maintain supercruise. An F-35C zooming at mach 1.5 is going to be hotter on the scopes than an F-22 supercruising at Mach 1.5 (I would think). That's probably what he was thinking...

Most of us can agree (to an extent) that the F-35 is behind the curve in terms of what it was promised and when it would be delivered. The threats and adversaries haven't been sitting still waiting for the F-35 to come on line and then deciding where to go from there. Look at how much China's technologically base has advanced since 2006. Personally I would still give the US a technological edge over China but the brute force in numbers for their industries is something to keep an wary eye on. Sure their optics and radars may not be as sensitive or sophisticated as on the F-35 but the J-20 is a far ahead leap of what China was flying at the end of the 20th century.

The 3 variants are cumbersome when compared to what was initially promised at the early years of the JSF program. Yes there is more commonality between all 3 F-35 variants then there is between a Viper and a Mudhen. However each variant of the F-35 has its own set of requirements that required fundamentally different set of parts.



(I believe the USN and USAF NGADs will share common avionics, materials, and engines, but the aircraft will be designed to specific requirements for the services)

Falling back to my ground pounder mentality. Yes the M4 and M249 both fire the 5.56x45mm round but those weapons were designed with different requirements for differen roles. The USMC forced their M27 to fill the role of the M249 SAW, M16, and Mk12 SPR. The M27 does neither role of those 3 seperate systems exceedingly well or horribly worse (for the M27 replacing the SAW it falls well short on terms of sustained high volume fire).

[hornetfinn]

Yes, I agree with your assumptions and opinions. It was definitely a very good and long interview and it would be interesting to get another one addressing those specific issues that I raised but then again that is likely a bit too sensitive information.

As for infrared signature, this is definitely a issue for all fighter aircraft and I doubt F-35 is significantly worse than any other modern aircraft. F-22 definitely has the edge in supersonic infrared signature and EF Typhoon might also, but otherwise all the rest are likely in the same ballpark. I'd say that F-35 should have somewhat lower IR signature in frontal aspect as it has more buried engine than most other aircraft.

I think having different structures and some mechanical components is relatively minor issue compared to having different engines, sensors, flight control systems and all the other systems. If all three variants were totally different aircraft, then they would've likely been very different and thus either too expensive or less capable overall (at least B- and C-models). If all three used same sensors, engines, other systems and materials, I don't know how it would've been much different to current situation. For example what would've been really different in that case? I don't know what design compromises there are now that would not exist if there three different aircraft with so much similarities.

I do agree that the program had rather optimistic predictions early on, but that almost always happens with such complex programs.

[optimist]

He left in 2013, block 1A/B. Context is important.

RE: "but that giant engine creates a pretty big heat plume that can be seen easily"

He isn't referring to the aircraft and P&W seem proud of their engine heat management tech. A plume isn't seen and it is the aircraft that lights up. I'll post a F-16 pic when I find it. Is the exhaust plume in AB? That would show up.

Afterburner

[aussiebloke]

He left in 2013, block 1A/B. Context is important.

Exactly! According to Scott Kartvedt’s LinkedIn web page he left the USN’s VFA-101 Squadron (and the Navy) in February 2013. According to the F-35 database this training squadron’s first F-35Cs arrived in June 2013. I am sure that standing up a new squadron for a new aircraft was extremely difficult so I do not want to belittle his achievements. My guess though is that he had few flying hours on the F-35 and possibly none on the F-35C with their Block 2A software which is what the initial production F-35Cs came with. Even Block 2A software was reportedly very problematic. Flying F-35s with all the limitations and immaturity of Block 1 software may well have soured his view of the aircraft.