The F-35 Thread

As a Canadian I don't know how to feel about this jet. It seems like its gonna be a great fighter, but at the same time it has numerous problems.

All aircraft have problems, specially when in development. F-22 computer crashing when the pass the international date line. F-16, F-117, etc. where all grounded at one time or another for different reasons. The only difference we tend not to hear anything about it.

All aircraft have problems, specially when in development. F-22 computer crashing when the pass the international date line. F-16, F-117, etc. where all grounded at one time or another for different reasons. The only difference we tend not to hear anything about it.

Yep.

Accidents made news when they literally couldn't not talk about it (IE an aircraft goes down near a neighborhood or something).

Every combat aircraft fielded has problems at first.

The F-14 had engine problems that plagued it until the B's came online around 1988 (and the A's never fully escaped). The AWG9 radar was touchy and could be difficult to maintain.

The F-15 also had problems with it's engines as well as avionics issues.

The F-16 gained the nickname "lawn dart" because it's fly-by-wire system was unreliable at first as well as, like the other two "teens"..engine problems.

The F-111 had avionics issues as well as wing-box problems that it also never fully escaped.

Hell things were so bad with the F-15 early on that nearly half the USAF's fleet of Eagles was sitting with bare firewalls..that's how severe the engine problems were, at the height of the cold war.

I hadn't heard of the 'green glow" before, but apparently a fix is on the way.

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/paris-rockwell-collins-prototypes-fix-for-f-35-gre-438687/

Certainly an impressive display of high alpha capability, allows for that tight snap at the top of loops. But again no impressive show of rate, and there probably wont be either. High alpha nose authority and an impressive climb off though.

Certainly an impressive display of high alpha capability, allows for that tight snap at the top of loops. But again no impressive show of rate, and there probably wont be either. High alpha nose authority and an impressive climb off though.

:megalol: Of course Hummingbird, sure, sure.

:megalol: Of course Hummingbird, sure, sure.

Yep, its there for all to see.

The demo was Impressive, if not a bit short...

 

That being said.. comparing turn radius in a video isnt always accurate..

Far from accurate, different weather, location, pilot etc. all make a difference.

Not a full circle and parallax may be doing some work here but that's some eyebrow raising instantaneous rate.

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Are there any other non thrust vectoring, single engine aircraft that can do this maneuver? I have been looking online, but can't find any, maybe I'm searching the wrong thing. All other aircraft that I can see doing this have thrust vectoring. The F-22 does not have yaw vectoring AFAIK, but does have two engine that can help with yaw turns.

Are there any other non thrust vectoring, single engine aircraft that can do this maneuver? I have been looking online, but can't find any, maybe I'm searching the wrong thing. All other aircraft that I can see doing this have thrust vectoring. The F-22 does not have yaw vectoring AFAIK, but does have two engine that can help with yaw turns.

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Here's the Super Hornet attempting the same maneuver at 3 minutes. I'm not aware of any singlebarrel aircraft doing the pedal turn but I believe the bug has negligible yaw leverage from asymmetrical thrust for this purpose. Nevertheless the pedal turn here is not nearly as flat as the F-35's.

Definitely noticed that the F-35 is a more unstable design than the F/A-18, the F-35 only needs a rapid flick of the slabs to change pitch while the bug requires deflection for significantly longer periods.

Also looking back the official public PAS debut routine was never linked so here's the LM footage for posterity:

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Personally I still enjoyed that one qualification flight more though.

had read some pilot comments years ago that the F-35 performance was closer to the F-18 than the 16, now we know why. :)

Well, I look for demos from JF-17, Chinas J-10, HAL Tejas, JAS-39, Japans F-2, KAI T/FA-50, I'm sure mirage 2000 nor the F-16 can do it...which others am I missing?

I also think the F-35 is the only single engine aircraft with dual vertical tail.

I am still most impressed by the high alpha capability of the aircraft, and the power of that engine. I'm sure it will become a great aircraft.

Now regarding its sustained rate of turn, it isn't bad, but it obviously aint the best either. A 22 sec single 360 turn is pretty decent though. For comparisons sake the F-14A was capable of a 20 sec continuous 360 deg turn completely cleaned up as demonstrated at Abbotsford in 1986. Also the clean F-16 reliably pulls off 18 sec single 360's at airshows, sometimes even faster.

Just an example (all filmed the same day & place):

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Far from accurate, different weather, location, pilot etc. all make a difference.

Also, which F-16C are you comparing? Block 25,30,32,40,42,50,50+,52,52+

What is the weight difference between versions? Empty weight and max gross weight.

This is from 8 year ago, just wondering what has change in that area.

http://www.f-16.net/f-35-news-article2784.html

Here, the A model is in 70k class, but does that mean that it is 69k or 75k?

http://www.af.mil/About-Us/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/478441/f-35a-lightning-ii-conventional-takeoff-and-landing-variant/

https://a855196877272cb14560-2a4fa819a63ddcc0c289f9457bc3ebab.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/13567/f-35_fast_facts_may_2017_.pdf

here are the empty weights at least.

Cool thanks. I am looking forward to see the Navy version demo if they ever have one on an airshow. Also can't wait for the USAF to add this aircraft to the AFI11-246. I know it probably won't be as good as the LM demo in Paris, but still.

The Navy version is actually the one I believe will be capable of the most impressive turns, and I hope they will show that off in a demo. It's been given a lot of wing to improve lift and be able to land on carriers, and I suspect it'll perform very similar to the F/A-18.

The Navy version is actually the one I believe will be capable of the most impressive turns, and I hope they will show that off in a demo. It's been given a lot of wing to improve lift and be able to land on carriers, and I suspect it'll perform very similar to the F/A-18.

The C has lower g limits though, which might not be a big factor at high altitude but during air display demos it will.

The C has lower g limits though, which might not be a big factor at high altitude but during air display demos it will.

G is a function of speed and rate, in other words the F-35C will probably simply pull the same rate but at a lower speed and therefore G, which on top has the effect of reducing the turn radius. Thus the C variants display can be made to look even more "tight", which is usually what people find impressive - hence the obsession with A's tight snap at the top of loops. People love the high alpha show off, myself included (Im a sucker for it), but in real combat it is the sustainable rate that really matters, or atleast it used to be as nobody knows for real how xombat effective the new high offbore missiles would be against an advanced foe.

i think you lost the forest for the trees there. good sustain used to be the fastest way to achieve weapon solution. nowadays, the guy that's waiting for his sustained rate to carry him around is just waiting to get shot in the back because no matter how high his sustained rate is, it will always be slower than the instantaneous turns of these new airframes.

the goal of "he who shoots first wins" hasn't changed, but how to get there has. the instantaneous is no longer something to be avoided because it no longer bleeds you dry after 30 degrees.

in the end it looks like jack northrop's having all of the last laughs.

sustainable rate that really matters

1v1, yup.

Sustainable doesn't necessarily have to mean sustained, either. :)

I'd argue that sustained turns are as important as ever, but it can be heavily situation dependent. In very brief encounters, you can afford lose energy, but in a longer fight you will eventually run out. Being able to quickly turn without losing energy can be important in BVR if you have multiple groups of enemies coming from different directions. Maintaining a high level of kinetic energy is also good insurance against missiles. It degrades their effective range and can increase the amount of time that you have to react to them.

Sustainable doesn't necessarily have to mean sustained, either.

yeah, this is pretty key. internal carriage + powerful engine and the attendant gains in acceleration makes unloading worth more, and you can afford to unload more with instantaneous turns. the result is that net energy is higher while still accomplishing the same number of repositions because instead of repositioning through constant bleed, you're only bleeding when you need it the most.

energy conservation forces us to do a lot of roundabout maneuvers to get where we want to be. every second spent flying such a maneuver is a second more the enemy has to stay dangerous. there is huge incentive to be able to bypass the bfm dance and get a straight shot at the enemy, energy conservation be damned.

besides, you don't have to pinch the pennies if you're rolling in income.

Being able to quickly turn without losing energy can be important in BVR if you have multiple groups of enemies coming from different directions. Maintaining a high level of kinetic energy is also good insurance against missiles.

playing the kinematic game against the missile is all about losing energy, because you're playing off the fact that you have energy income and the missile doesn't. if you don't want to lose energy, guess what, you're not raising the stakes for the missile either.

i think you lost the forest for the trees there. good sustain used to be the fastest way to achieve weapon solution. nowadays, the guy that's waiting for his sustained rate to carry him around is just waiting to get shot in the back because no matter how high his sustained rate is, it will always be slower than the instantaneous turns of these new airframes.

I don't think that's actually true for the neutral merge scenario, esp. since both aircraft will naturally initiate the fight with a very high rate instantaneous pull after which point they will both quickly reach their corner speed, and if one of them just ignores this and keeps pulling max rate past that point, well then that guy will be betting all his horses on one shot - and if said shot fails, due to effective CMs etc, or might not even happen if the other guys STR is sufficiently high, well then he has just made himself a sitting duck out of energy to effectively counter the opponents next move.