
I finally saw the f-35 at Avalon airshow yesterday and gotta say I'm impressed. The pilots didn't perform a full aerobatics display but did a few highish AoA turns with AB and a few with mil thrust. It definitely did NOT look sluggish at all.
Couple things I noticed. The f-16, f-22 and f-35 all flew during the hot, dry part of the day which gave a good opportunity to compare certain aspects of how they fly. The f-16 accelerated pretty well when it went nose down and full AB. The f-22 seemed a little more sluggish when it did the same. The f-35 pilot put his gear down a few times pretending he was going to land only to put them up again as he got to the start of the runway then planted the AB again. the f-35s acceleration in level flight looked on par to the f-16 in a 20 degree dive and looked a lot better than the raptor's. All at sea levelish of course.
Also I noticed during some of the high aoa turns the f-35s elevators were periodically flapping back to level during the turns. Claws kicking in I presume. Wonder what it can do when they open them up because the turns looked pretty impressive for something that "can't turn". The mil thrust, sustained turns looked good too. Nozzles close significantly at mil thrust which I would guess is great for frontal IR stealth when approaching a target or rear RCS when flying away.
Another vertical climb out (like the Norwegian demo) accelerating as it climbed at the start after a very short take off.
The second pilot commentating said that the f-35 really earns its money performance wise during sub to supersonic transition saying pretty clearly that it does it faster and more efficiently than other jets with stores loaded. Goes against certain reports on transonic acceleration.
The F-35 is significantly louder than the f-16, superhornet, and hornet. Much Lower pitched rumbling (thunder) sound than the others but with a much louder crackling sound than the others that makes everyone without ear protection cover up as it flies over.
The wing vortices trailing the jet snake around and create knots and patterns about 200m or so behind the jet. Pretty cool to watch.