This article was last updated on April 16, 2022
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Recent developments show that the U.S. fighter pilots are not so much interested in their new F-35 stealth jets anymore. A scornful report leaked from Pentagon this week illustrates that pilots feel there are a large number of problems in the U.S. military’s F-35 fleet, including as serious worries as it being vulnerable to be easily be shot down.
Along with other worries of the pilots mentioned in the report it claims that radars don’t work, blurry vision from the aircraft’s sophisticated helmet, and inability to fly through clouds. The assertion of different pilots and their comments give a complete picture that the fleet of jets is nowhere near ready for real-life operations. The renowned manufacturer of F-35, Lockheed Martin, has refused to comment on the leaked report, however it is more likely to be taken under consideration by the Canadian military planners that are currently assessing options for replacing Canada’s aging CF-18s.
The report from Pentagon’s chief testing office, dated February, is allegedly based on trial run at the U.S. military’s Eglin Air Force Base in Florida from September to November of last year. The testing was aimed to determine whether aircraft the U.S. has already bought from Lockheed Martin are good enough for starting an extensive training for U.S. fighter pilots. The report was originally supposed to take place in August 2011, however, it was postponed as a number of critical issues were already identified in the aircraft, a majority of which still remain unresolved more than a year later.
harper and mackay, two stupcomment_ID a– comment_content_ID-iots ! what else is new ?
let’s test these planes out by bombing harper and the corruption party !
The F-35 will be inadequate to deal with the changed high threat environment which has shown that the aircraft has a lot of limitations and it cannot do a lot of things as expected to show and promise that is a true fifth generation fighter, because it does not meet all the requirements of partner nations. Its fuselage is too overweight which has too much cross section; the wings are too small which lacks the extreme manoeuvrability. The wing planform is optimised for subsonic cruise and transonic manoeuvre which doesn’t provcomment_IDe enough lift and drag to defeat Beyond Visual Range (BVR) and Within Visual Range (WVR) air-to-air missiles (AAMs) from enemy fighters in the dogfight and stand-off ranges, advanced surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) and Anti-Aircraft Artilleries (AAA’s) during changed high threat environment. It also has inferior acceleration at Mach 1.6, short range with no loiter time and very limited weapons payload that is unsuited for bomber and cruise missile defence and totally unsuited for air superiority role when compared against Sukhoi family of aircraft, particularly post 2010 configurations; definitely post 2015 evolved growth variants and upcoming J-20 and J-21/31 fifth generation fighters.
The F-35 was defined during the mcomment_ID-1990s to have “affordable” aerodynamic performance, stealth performance, sensor capabilities and weapons loads to be “affordably” effective against the most common threat systems of that era past – legacy Soviet Cold War era weapons, not for the 21st Century emerging threats. The F-35 is designed primarily to support ground forces on the battlefield with some self defence capabilities and is not suitable for the developing regional environment and, not suitable for close air support missions. The aircraft is unsuited for bomber and cruise missile defence due to limited range/endurance, limited weapons load and limited supersonic speed. As its limitations are inherent to the design, they cannot be altered by incremental upgrades. The F-35 will be ineffective against the current generation of extremely powerful advanced Russian and Chinese systems, as detailed above; In any combat engagements between the F-35 and such threat systems, most or all F-35 aircraft will be rapcomment_IDly lost to enemy fire.
If you have the F-35s that just aren’t capable of dealing with the high threat zones, it just doesn’t do you any good of going ahead with the failed program and sink the money. Because the F-35 will be increasingly expensive aircraft that will fail the air defence program.
The F-35 is a boondoggle, nothing but a turkey of the program.
I still don’t understand why is the late model F-15E+ Strike Eagle not conscomment_IDered as an viable option to replace the CF-18A/B Hornets?
What’s is so special about the F/A-18E/F?
There was a damning report of the Super Hornet in areas of critical operational requirements, while praising it for its improved aircraft carrier capabilities when compared to the original F/A-18A-D Hornet – something not high on our list of essential criteria.
Three sentences on page eight of the report say it all: “The consequences of low specific excess power in comparison to the threat are poor climb rates, poor sustained turn capability, and a low maximum speed. Of greatest tactical significance is the lower maximum speed of the F/A-18E/F since this precludes the ability to avocomment_ID or disengage from aerial combat. In this regard, the F/A-18E/F is only marginally inferior to the F/A-18C/D, whose specific excess power is also conscomment_IDerably inferior to that of the primary threat, the MiG-29.”
The F/A-18E/F has a similar performance deficiences to the F-35 which the aircraft has a short range and does not have the performance envelope of a true air superiority fighter compared to the large fighters (with high capability). They will be outclassed by the Su-27/30 Flanker family of fighters by most regional nations in all key performance parameters, aerodynamic, bigger weapons payload, radar / sensor performance by wcomment_IDely available fighters.
Apart from the new Sukhoi Su-27/30 family proliferating across the regions: the F/A-18E/F is acknowledged in the report as being no match for even the older and newer MiG-29 family. Space precludes quoting the report’s comments on the multitude of other areas where the Super Hornet is inferior to the 1970s-designed and 1980s-built original F/A-18 aircraft. Admittedly the Block II Super Hornet has a new APG-79 AESA radar and some electronic components not in the version Coyle gave evcomment_IDence on, but the fundamental airframe and performance remain unaltered: it is heavier, slower, larger and uglier (its radar signature dcomment_ID not measure up to expectations) than the normal Hornet.
Evcomment_IDently the underwing aero-acoustic environment and resulting vibrations are so violent that some weapons are being damaged in transit to the target on a single flight – dumb bombs are fine in that environment but not long-range missiles containing sophisticated and relatively delicate components. To me there is nothing super about this Hornet; perhaps “Super Dog” is a better descriptor.