Originally Posted by
Courtney Mil
Yes, the claims about outclassing Gen4/4.5 aircraft were made, but no longer appear on the various websites - certainly gone from the headlines on the LM one. Hardly surprising.
As for WVR manoeuvre, this was discussed here at some length back in (what?) 2013? My point there was that without knowing the F-35 (A, B and C) figures, we can't do meaningful SEP/rate/radius/g comparisons. We can only read what a man that flies it says about these things - there are a million (insert your own frealistic figure) uses of phrases such as, "do you have a link for that?". Yes, the man that raised some issues about manoeuvre.
Don't get me wrong, I am NOT anti-F-35; but I am happy to debate and enquire about its capabilities. Both the "pro" and "anti" factions need to appreciate that being critical does not mean being burnt at the stake any more. To be fair, I think most of the so-called "nay-Sayers", "Detractors" one"antis" are actually firmly in the same camp; it's just that we are too readily labelled by fans that don't like heresy.
But, yes, the claims about all metrics were made. Sorry I can't be arsed to look any further to fail to find them.
I would say that we are [unfortunately] locked into the F-35B, via a combination of [coughs] business acumen and political narcissism [what, change my mind again-never-what would the proles think] .
However to attempt to portray the airframe as a quantum step forwards was dishonest to say the least.
As to the Avionics, software and LO, well they are what, 10-15 years old already, neither fully developed or providing what the manufacturer claimed and actually may well not be relevant when the airframe eventually meets it's supposed operational standards baseline in what, 5 years time, minimum??
So you can discuss helmets and looking through the floor to your hearts content, but if the aircraft is in the position of being obsolescent by the
time it matures in operational service well what do you do then???? Are we at the cusp of manned aircraft being obsolescent already????/