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It Turns Out the F-35 Can Dogfight (defensenews.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Writing for Defense News, Lara Seligman reports, "For the first time since a controversial report detailing how the F-35 performs in a dogfight emerged last summer, an F-35 pilot gave an in-depth analysis of his experience flying the jet in a close-range battle scenario. Norwegian Air Force Maj. Morten 'Dolby' Hanche, the first Norwegian to fly the F-35, analyzed the jet's performance in a dogfight in a March 1 blog post published on Norway's Ministry of Defense website. Although Hanche never mentions the 2015 report, 'F-35A High Angle of Attack Operational Maneuvers' revealed last summer by blogger David Axe on WarisBoring.com, he counters many of the anonymous author's claims."
If you read the article he mentions being capable of being marginally more offensive than he could be in an F-16. While this isn't to be dismissed as meaning 'nothing.' F-35 defenders should be careful to trumpeting the fact that a pilot finds the F-35 is not, in fact, worse than a 40+ year old airframe design.
The problem with the F-35's dogfighting is that it's performance is not remotely comparable to aircraft being sold abroad by the Russian aviation community. Yes, it has capabilities that many aircraft do not, and some capabilities that have not even been fully enabled as well; however, ALL of these abilities are unrelated to the basic physical performance of the aircraft and the basic performance of the aircraft is the area of primary concern as a platform for enabling these technologies.
Are people under the impression that the Su-37 can't get a 'look-thru' helmet cueing system? That, unlike fundamental airframe design, software capabilities cannot rapidly advance post construction of the aircraft?
I don't think the F-35 is useless, but it sure is an INCREDIBLY expensively mediocre aircraft intended to carry excellent (someday) software and sensors.
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The first report didn't say 'it can't dogfight'. They identified deficiencies in the flight control system which was set up for a higher margin of safety during flight testing. They also identified a not-so-surprising energy deficiency against an F-16.
The Norwegian pilot flew with the combat tuned FCS, and they effectively pointed out the advantages of high AoA control.
Both reports taken together are important. The F-35 can dogfight, but like any fighter, it has strengths and weaknesses.
Maybe he was just blinded by science.
"The first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole is stop digging."
In related news, recent findings show that a Basset Hound can dogfight. Not very effectively, and the dog seldom wins the fight. But evidence has been uncovered of basset hounds fighting other dogs.
The whole debate seems to me to be missing the point. The main driving design principles of the F-35 were to have it to detect and destroy from longer distances while reducing the distance in which it can be detected and destroyed. No, you can't just discount dogfighting and everything else, but the whole point is to avoid dogfights in the first place by taking down the opponent from long before they'd have a chance to do the same to you. It's particularly designed to be effective at taking out antiaircraft systems.
Stale pastry is hollow succor to one who is bereft of ostrich.
The F-35 can dogfight, but like any fighter, it has strengths and weaknesses.
Whether or not it can dogfight against other manned fighters is irrelevant, since that scenario is unlikely. A more important questions is if it can dogfight against drones with half the turning radius, when outnumbered 5 to 1.
The era of piloted aircraft is rapidly closing. I fear that we are preparing for a gunfight by spending a trillion dollars on a really nice knife.
The original article did not really say the F-35 can't dogfight, it stated that it suffered from energy deficit compared to the F-16. This article points out that it also benefits from less restricted angle of attack than the F-16. These are not inconsistent observations. I've fought the F-16 many times, and flew it once. The F-16 has significant AOA limits (limited by the FBW system). What does that mean? It means that the F-16 can carve a great turn and has a sweet 9G initial pull, but if you can live past the first couple turns the Viper is going to be AOA limited and you can pretty much have your way with it. I flew Navy jets (F-14/18) which have no AOA limit. Even with an energy deficit, the ability to "point the nose" has significant advantages, particularly today with high off-boresight weapons like AIM-9X. That being said, in 2016 I would expect to have a jet that has both AOA and thrust/weight advantages over a jet from the mid 70's. This sets up a classic rate vs radius fight. The F-16 has a rate advantage, the F-35 has a radius advantage.
For a (somewhat inaccurate) automotive analogy, the F-16 has more HP and torque, but suffers from understeer. If you enter a turn at the right speed you are fine, but enter too fast and no matter how much you turn the wheel you don't get any more turn out of the car. The F-35 allows oversteer. You can turn harder and the rear will start to swing around. You may loose 30MPH in the turn, but you will turn.
The discussions on the F35 often center around its capabilities as a fighter. I think it is important to remember that neither the Navy nor the Marine core want a plane that is primarily a fighter. Most previous jets in service for the Navy and Marine's have been designed as fighters for the Air Force and have been repurposed. The Air Force already has a air-superioirty fighter in the F22. With the F35 the Air Force for the first time has had to make some concessions and the result the Navy and Marine's are getting a jet that is vastly more capable for their needs than the repurposed fighters they have had in the past
Sure there are drones that can do all that: they're called air to air missiles, in particular the Russian K-77M missile.
If it can't dogfight, would they say so?
If it can dogfight, would they say so?
I'm rather surprised that anyone - especially ones who should know better - is saying anything.
BRB, door.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
You're overestimating drone capability as well as mis-stating and mis-understanding the purpose of drones.
We should be designing aircraft to meet future threats, not current threats.
no one's working on any type of dedicated air to air drone.
No one in America is working on it, because it would be a threat to the MIC. The USAF is run by pilots, and for pilots, and nearly all drone innovation has come from outside their ranks. Defense contractors dread the far lower costs of drones. They prefer lucrative boondoggles like the F-35. Politicians don't want to stand up to the MIC, because they will be subjected to withering attack ads claiming they are "weak on defence".
It is more likely that China and Russia are working on air-to-air capability, since they have more to gain from challenging American hegemony, and, although they are corrupt, their corruption doesn't involve the same military-political-lobbyist links that America has, and they don't have super-PACs supporting the status quo.
> always trying to get behind the enemy aircraft
Sort of, but not exactly. Imagine a giant sphere with the opponent in the circle . If you're anywhere in the rear half of the sphere, you have positional advantage . If you're in the front half of the sphere, the other guy does. (Ignoring gravity and energy, for sake of simplicity) . Of course it's not just one sphere 3,000 feet in diameter, but an infinite number of spheres of various sizes. So basically half the battle space is "behind" and half the battle space is "in front", not just the line DIRECTLY behind.
If you're 10 degrees left of directly behind and 20 degrees above, you can fire on him. With a front cannon, you point your aircraft in his direction and fire. With a rear-facing cannon, you'd need to point your aircraft such that the enemy is DIRECTLY behind you in order in aim the cannon at him. That's exactly where you don't want him! You'd never maneuver to try to put him directly behind you when he's firing from anywhere in the "behind" half of the air space.
One may think "a rear cannon and a front cannon both have to be aimed, so they're the same". There are two differences. An obvious difference is that maneuvering the aircraft to aim forward is easier than maneuvering to aim backward for the same reasons that driving forward is easier than driving backward.
Just as important, the pilots aren't only maneuvering for aim, changing which direction the aircraft points. The aircraft are also moving through the sky. You're trying to "lead" the opponent with your aim, aiming where he WILL be later, when the butllets get there. In other words, you're aiming in front of your opponent. With both aircraft moving in roughly the same direction, with turning with roughly the same arc, shooting in front of you will naturally tend to shoot in front of the other guy . Shooting behind you will tend to shoot behind him , where he's already been rather than where he's about to be.
Seeker missiles don't have to be aimed as precisely as cannons, but they should be shot in the right general direction , so the same ideas apply. It's just less crucial.
I'm with mbkennel, there are many many many drones which are constantly improving for specifically attacking airplanes.
Making a small drone kamakazi is a far better idea than making a device which deploys weapons. Once the weapon leaves the deployment device (the jet fighter for example) it is extremely limited in its abilities to aim and eventually runs out of fuel etc... Creating one based on an airplane design which can be piloted either autonomously or remotely to chase a plane, smash into it and eliminate it is far more optimal. The cost itself is extremely low as well compared to multiple missiles and bullets deployed by a jet. It's more efficient as well.
So, this leads us to the follow up.
1) We believe no one is working on this tech. We don't actually know.
2) Why are we spending a trillion dollars on planes which require pilots and life support systems and all kinds of things like this when we should be focused on a making a factory which can autonomously produce large numbers of drones on demand extremely rapidly. Then instead of pissing away huge amounts of resources cluelessly, we can simply "print on demand" what we need and exploit the disposable nature of new tech.
3) Where is the value in piloted planes in 2016? Can you honestly say that a jet fighter can be superior to smaller, faster, more agile devices without the needs of transporting or risking humans?
The only answer I have is that most economies in the world depend on government sponsored jobs. Wasting tax payers money on worthless crap like this feeds larges amounts of money into the economy to produce jobs everywhere from useless sales people at DoE contractors down to the girl at the drive through window asking "Would you like fries with that?" three towns over where the floor cleaner lives. It's basically social welfare and/or something leaning towards basic income without saying socialism.
Governments of western nations generally are not allowed to build their own companies to compete with the free market. As such the only way to make government created jobs is to build stuff we don't really need. Sometimes, the only option is to just give money wastefully to some asshole sales guy who will jump off immediately with a golden parachute to avoid job losses.
I would like to see us be a little less stupid with the money than wasting it on putting pilots onto jet fighters and then having to publish articles about "Yeh... in the end, the F-35 is a good plane... the F-16 is a good plane too... I think I could get used to it... it seems like it was really really worth spending a trillion dollars to make another plane which isn't really clearly superior or really needed."
Can anyone actually make a clear statement like "The existence of the F-35 was worth it and the militaries which have it are now clearly better off than they were because of...."
The solution to firing forwards was the interruptor gear, initially, then later sticking the guns out on the wings. Also some aircraft then were in the pusher configuration. Some such as the DH2 did have a gun with a mount which allowed pointing the gun, but the pilots found that fixing the gun forwards was better.
I didn't know about the crazy deflector wedges until today!
The turret concept was referred to as a turret fighter. They had a brief period of polularity pre and early WWII with fighters such as the Paul-Boulton defiant, but in practice they turned out to be not all that great. They could of course fire backwards, but they couldn't fire forwards without wrecking the aerodynamics. They fared better as night fighters, where dogfighting was much different than as dogfighters.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
The problem is a stand away from battle and launch missiles makes a poor CAS plane and makes a poor cheap air to air combat vehicle
The f-22 is supposed to breach an enemy's defenses that is when bvr attacks are most likely to occur. The f-22 take out SAMs and initial air craft. The f-35 is cheap and in large numbers to follow behind and clean up while slower planes provide air cover for ground forces.
Saying the f-35 is for bvr takes away the purpose of the f-22
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
The main driving design principles of the F-35 were to have it to detect and destroy from longer distances while reducing the distance in which it can be detected and destroyed.
Yes, that has been the driving design since the sixties. It has never come to pass. Problem has always been, and will probably continue to be, identification of far away targets (BWR). IFF "doesn't work", i.e. there are too many situations where your own forces won't have IFF, or it will be switched off. There are also all the third parties that don't have IFF (civilian aircraft). This has always lead to an ROE where you'll first have to acquire visually to confirm your target. In almost all instances where fast jets have operated.
And with stealth aircraft that has only gotten worse, not better, as you now cannot turn on your own radar, for fear of being the first to give up your position. Which means that your own stealth leaves you relatively speaking more blind than before. Before you could light up your enemy, since they were already lighting you up. Now, not so much. And without radar, no BWR shot. (Advanced IR has gotten much more important, but isn't generally good enough to shoot with.)
So, sensors and technology do get better, whether they'll finally be good enough to actually be safe to use, that's still very much up for debate. My money is on "no, not really", dogfighting is still going to be the order of the day, as it always has been.
Stefan Axelsson
The f-35 is cheap and in large numbers to follow...
At 100 million per aircraft I would hate to see your definition of expensive!
and his fan boys. Boyd of OODA loop fame was posited as a fighter expert like small quick simple planes as fighters for dogfighting which has influenced fighter design for awhile. Here's something I have in common with him though, neither one of us has ever shot down another plane in combat even once.(I love mentioning that.) Anyway the problem with all of this is they forget one of the first fighter experts, Oswald Boelcke, of Dicta Boelcke who actually managed to shoot down other planes and influenced the Red Baron. (Both got killed in WWI so have to mention that.) His opinion was pretty much dogfighting was for suckers and the best thing was to shoot down the other bastard before he knew what the hell hit him, either from above, the back, from the sun, or all of the above. Or as I like to say it "Shoot him in the fucking back!"
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
The f-35 is cheap and in large numbers to follow...
At 100 million per aircraft I would hate to see your definition of expensive!
The F-35 program is clearly messed up and to expensive. However it's not meant to be "cheap" overall. The point is "cheap marginal cost". In other words, the next F-35 you order extra, on top of the ones you already ordered, should be much cheaper than ordering an extra F-22. They invested lots in making expensive production techniques to reduce the cost of mass producing the planes. The current estimate for "cost per hour" is $32000, which is much cheaper than the $44000 estimate for the F-22. That's the average over the lifetime though, so the next additional hour you want to add would be cheaper than that. That's really important if you get into a big long war where you need to keep producing more and more aircraft to replace ones being shot down.
Of course this is all in comparison to other US aircraft. The shocking thing is that much more effective aircraft like the Eurofighter come in around $18000 per hour or the even the Grippen, which has limitations such as range, but due to it's lower visibility tends to beat the F-22 in air to air combat comes in below $5000 per hour. Cheap is relative.
And with stealth aircraft that has only gotten worse, not better, as you now cannot turn on your own radar, for fear of being the first to give up your position. Which means that your own stealth leaves you relatively speaking more blind than before. Before you could light up your enemy, since they were already lighting you up. Now, not so much.
Is this as much a problem nowadays? I can't imagine a realistic scenario in which our combat aircraft are going to be without AWACS support in any sort of conflict in the foreseeable future. Any modern allied aircraft should be able to see whatever the allied sensor grid can see. Granted, there are many "lukewarm" conflicts in which you'll need to visually identify first, but why would we send piloted aircraft to do this these days? That's precisely what we should be using disposable drones for.
I'm not saying dogfighting and close-range combat aren't important, but you'd certainly want to look at recent history and determine probable engagement distances. I have no idea what it actually is (a quick Google search didn't turn up anything - that information may be classified). But I have to imagine - or at least I'd hope - that such data would drive future development. Although... given this boondoggle, maybe I'm giving them too much credit.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
2) You will never be able to manufacture while moving at the same efficiency as you can in a large factory with established infrastructure lines. In fact if you are trying to manufacture while moving you would have been better off dedicating the spare and weight capacity to just carrying the finished product. You are infinitely better off with a huge stock pile and an efficient damage resistant logistics system
3) A piloted plane does not have the communication system point of failure that a remote controlled drone has. If all your aircraft can be either taken offline or severely degraded through targeting communication facilities they will be. For example, if a war happens between major powers and one side is using manned craft and one is using remote controlled craft how long before the long range cruise missiles hit every sat dish and tower they can find and how long before the anti sat missiles take out that communication network? Once that happens how will your drones perform against the manned craft?
Also I think you need to think about the F35 or any other plane in a different way. They are not combat vehicles, they are weapon platforms that operate in combat environments. Their role is to bring weapons into range of a target, & deliver those weapons. At one end of the demand spectrum something like the B52 is brilliant because it can carry a truly stupid amount of weapons. But you may as well be flying a giant neon sign saying shoot here. At the other end of the spectrum is the F22. It can get in get close and get out. What it can't do is carry lots and lots of weapons.
So "The existence of the F-35 was worth it and the militaries which have it are now clearly better off than they were because of.... low radar signature, interoperability with allies, large install base reducing part cost, high commonality between variants, relatively cheap even at early production levels (1/3rd cost of f22)
And with stealth aircraft that has only gotten worse, not better, as you now cannot turn on your own radar, for fear of being the first to give up your position. Which means that your own stealth leaves you relatively speaking more blind than before. Before you could light up your enemy, since they were already lighting you up. Now, not so much.
Is this as much a problem nowadays? I can't imagine a realistic scenario in which our combat aircraft are going to be without AWACS support in any sort of conflict in the foreseeable future. Any modern allied aircraft should be able to see whatever the allied sensor grid can see. Granted, there are many "lukewarm" conflicts in which you'll need to visually identify first, but why would we send piloted aircraft to do this these days? That's precisely what we should be using disposable drones for.
I'm not saying dogfighting and close-range combat aren't important, but you'd certainly want to look at recent history and determine probable engagement distances. I have no idea what it actually is (a quick Google search didn't turn up anything - that information may be classified). But I have to imagine - or at least I'd hope - that such data would drive future development. Although... given this boondoggle, maybe I'm giving them too much credit.
That's exactly what the DoD thought when designing the F-4. They simply couldn't think of a scenario where dog fighting would be important anymore becuase radar and radios would identify hostiles and missiles would destroy them before they got into range. Therefore the first models of the F-4 Phantom had no guns.
Low and behold, during it's first major combat operation, the F-4 pilots still couldn't identify targets and had to close to visual range. Without guns, they were at a disadvantage to North Vietnamese MIG-15s and MIG 17s, as they were always having to go for the missile lock.
Just because you can't imagine a scenario where that will ever happen again doesn't mean it won't happen. Technology does not solve all problems.
There was just (March 6) a good documentary on Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Background Briefing radio show about where the JSF was right plane for Australia. http://www.abc.net.au/radionat...
Quite the interesting show and it seems like there are lots of problems still with the plane. Like how it still doesn't like the heat so that the weapons bay doors have to be opened every ten minutes when it's hot out. On the ground or in flight! The problem with the weight of the helmet still hasn't been taken care of so pilots can still be killed. The training simulators that pilots have been using haven't actually been verified to be accurate.
The deflectors were done by some witty Brit and then he crashed - and lived, by the way. I think he was shot down. The Germans found out it when they examined his downed craft and realized it was brilliant but they wanted better. Enter Focker (spelling) who was a Dutchman and working for the Germans at the time. He figured out the interrupter gear and that lead to "Bloody April" as I recall.
I'm lazy and just got back a little while ago so, to the others suggesting they fire missiles backwards, that's do-able and whatnot but doesn't seem to work that well in reality. They did so with mounted rifles in WWII (and WWI) but those were projectiles fired with force and not projectiles that carry their own propellant. As I recall, getting a missile to reliably ignite and stay lit, while flying backwards at Mach 1 or higher, is not an easy task. It turns out, it's more complicated than GI Joe has led some folks to believe.
I like WWI documentaries too - not just WWII and science/physics. I am not a historian. In fact, I don't even intent to know the above information. It just kind of happened. Eventually, you see, hear, or read it enough times and it sticks with you.
The Century of Warfare
The World at War
WWII The Complete History
Those are good series. I believe YouTube has all of 'em and I want to say all of them were BBC.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
and technology hasn't progressed in the ensuing 50 years?
hint:
IFF didn't exist back then.
neither did AWACS.
both are a result of that lesson.
and the biggest reason the F4s came to a dogfight was they ran out of missiles. the number of enemy aircraft likely to be faced was simply underestimated, leaving them vulnerable once their load was depleted. and no they were not at a disadvantage: missile lock can be done far far longer away than a gun shot can. the idea of taking them out at range with missiles worked.
the problem was once the missiles were gone., and their were still bad guys left.
its just that our doctrine wasn't exactly secret, so the obvious counter of sending up more aircraft than we were loaded for easily presented itself, which forced us to spend more effort in establishing air superiority than we had planned for. but we did establish almost unrestricted air superiority.
let me be clear: there was no disadvantage from the F4 to the MiGs until the missiles were gone, and even then only if the remaining MiGs closed the distance, which didn't happen very often. the most frequent scenario where an empty F4 encountered another hostile was when they were already on the way home.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.