I have posted on security issues with the F-35 aircraft under Have You Ever Pwned an F-35? and about its tendency to catch on fire, spontaneously, under Pwning F-35 – Safety Alert.
Today I read Test Pilot Admits the F-35 Can’t Dogfight: New stealth fighter is dead meat in an air battle by David Axe.
From David’s post:
A test pilot has some very, very bad news about the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The pricey new stealth jet can’t turn or climb fast enough to hit an enemy plane during a dogfight or to dodge the enemy’s own gunfire, the pilot reported following a day of mock air battles back in January.
“The F-35 was at a distinct energy disadvantage,” the unnamed pilot wrote in a scathing five-page brief that War Is Boring has obtained. The brief is unclassified but is labeled “for official use only.”
The test pilot’s report is the latest evidence of fundamental problems with the design of the F-35 — which, at a total program cost of more than a trillion dollars, is history’s most expensive weapon.
The U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps — not to mention the air forces and navies of more than a dozen U.S. allies — are counting on the Lockheed Martin-made JSF to replace many if not most of their current fighter jets.
And that means that, within a few decades, American and allied aviators will fly into battle in an inferior fighter — one that could get them killed … and cost the United States control of the air.
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A close friend recently said that I shouldn’t complain about vendors making money off of the government in return for little or no useful goods or services. He called it, “…breaking their rice bowls….”
Perhaps so but the result of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people not speaking up when the government is billed for little or no useful goods or services is the $1 Trillion Lockheed Martin F-35 Flying Coffin.
Not only do such projects damage the military capability of the United States, it also degrades the military forces of every country that buys one of these buggy, flammable and easy-to-defeat aircraft.
I’m sure it can stand off and fire missiles with great accuracy, but so can a land-based cruise missile launcher. For a lot less money.
Foreign countries should be rushing to cancel orders for the Lockheed Martin F-35 Flying Coffin and invest in innovative military solutions. Highly sophisticated missile systems designed to degrade aircraft delivery platforms for example. Or electronic warfare and anti-aircraft missile defenses.