MSOCS, I understand that it has a hard response from those that have had previous experience from the era in which they served. However Liberson isn't a slouch when it comes to sims either.
Gary Liberson, who is on his right, has 22 years of experience as an operations analyst and research engineer with McDonnell Douglas, the RAND Corporation, and Lockheed Martin Aeronautics. He has extensive experience with combat analysis, methodologies and analysis techniques. He is considered an expert in Brawler, Thunder, Suppressor, SeaFan and PacWar constructive simulation tools. His areas of expertise include combat aircraft systems and tactics as well as advanced threat analysis.
The link is a long page but this is my summary of it.
Mr Burbage : We do a lot of analysis at Lockheed Martin. We use validated and accepted air force detailed campaign-level tools. We also put loop in simulations and high-fidelity cockpit type simulations. I do not know where that data (3:1) came from—Gary may have a better feel for it—but that is not what the current assessment shows. Again, you are pulling information from before we had the full definition of what this airplane can do.
Mr Liberson : Our current assessment that we speak of is: greater than six to one relative loss exchange ratio against in four versus eight engagement scenarios—four blue at 35s versus eight advanced red threats in the 2015 to 2020 time frame.
Mr Burbage : It is probably also important to add that pilots from the Royal Australian Air Force, all the participating nations' air forces and all three US services have come into the manned tactical simulator, the pilot-in-the-loop high-fidelity simulation of an advanced high-threat environment. They have actually flown the airplane in that environment, and the results of those simulations show that the airplane is effectively meeting its operational requirements.
Mr Liberson : And it is very important to note that our constructive simulations that Mr Burbage talks about without the pilot in the loop are the lowest number that we talk about—the greater than six to one. When we include the pilot in the loop activities, they even do better when we include all of that in our partner manned tactical simulation facility.
Mr Burbage : We actually have a fifth-gen airplane flying today. The F22 has been in many exercises. We have one of the pilots here who flew it and they can tell you that in any real-world event it is much better than the simulations forecast. We have F35 flying today; it has not been put into that scenario yet, but we have very high quality information on the capability of the sensors and the capability of the airplane, and we have represented the airplane fairly and appropriately in these large-scale campaign models that we are using. But it is not just us—it is our air force; it is your air force; it is all the other participating nations that do this; it is our navy and our marine corps that do these exercises. It is not Lockheed in a closet genning up some sort of result.
Air Cdre Bentley : All of the defence officials who are appropriately cleared in all of the nations that are participating in this country know exactly what we have briefed, what those briefings entail and what the analysis entails, and they have chosen F35. .... Believe the nine best air forces in the world as far as their operators and their analysts are concerned and I think that you will come to realise that it is not us telling the story; it is them telling the story to their governments and their governments making a decision to go forward with this aeroplane.