078 - F-35 Lightning II 

Kind of you to say, thank you, because I'm still too critical on myself. Appreciate the feedback.

Sunshine took it home, FP velcro shoulder patch coming up, in merch too?

ဏႆး? .

Good comment. I always get frustrated with range. Stealth bags weight penalty ect.

They also called the VAUNTED F16 'The Law Dart' during its development phase... Thanks for the great perspective mate!

F-14 had many issues deep into it's development and operational history. The F-4U Corsair ended up mostly flying from runways instead of carriers, yet still had a stellar carreer all the way into the Korean War. P-38 Lightning had a bad reputation early on for killing pilots after engine failures. So many top fighters have had teething problems.

Wow. You are reading my mind. F-111F was a beast. If anyone wants to get close to something that is too big to fly, go to an air show or museum and look at it. I was 22 yrs.old and it changed my whole mindset.

​@@slartybarfastb3648I loved the Tomcat and It's large too. Full disclosure. Top -Gun was not even a thing when it kicked me.

“Game changer” seems to be a commonly used phrase.

C.W Lemoine!

Ayyy thats Lemoine!

TOMCATS!

..."Mover"

David Fravor too

Hope it was worth the wait!

Correct. We exchanged texts recently--he is laying low for now.

The first sailer from the aircraft carrier died from covic 19. The captain did his best to protect his people. It's so sad it could be so much avoid but no. Congratulations pentagon killing your own is a proud tradition of you.

@@TitusFFM There are a lot of considerations about public info access to the status of a deployed carrier, more than just the welfare of the crew. Not to say the welfare of the crew is trivial, but military personnel safety and the mission are always in competition with each other, and the mission finds a way of extracting its pound of flesh on a regular basis just with accidents, let alone combat operations.

The moment someone pops up with those types of comments, they must be ready to hear about all the nightmares with the F-14, F-16, F/A-18, & AV-8A/B. Total losses and fatalities with the F-14, AV-8, & F/A-18 are far more than I ever imagined, and I've been studying each of these programs since the 1970s. I was particularly surprised by F/A-18 total losses and fatalities during its first 10 years of service. Last I counted, there were 100 Aircraft losses and 20 fatalities during that time, some just from landing gear issues with a coupling bar that was supposed to keep the MLG wheels aligned. That killed a former Tomcat pilot who was one of the Libyan Sukhoi killers in the 1981 Gulf of Sidra incident.

@@LRRPFco52 Difference is the internet was not around at the time for everyone to express their opinions and google random statistics while ignoring certain areas with biased feelings. Not to mention the 1000s upon 1000s of Russian bots and 15 year olds who come on here.

My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.

I can’t help thinking about last time dogfighting was said to be outdated. B- and C-variants not having a gun sure feels ominous...

@ Remember, US Navy and Marine corps Phantoms never carried internal guns, and at least for the Navy they never carried gunpods. US Navy Phantoms relied 100% on missiles and proper maintence-training

Can't wait to fly it in BMS, eh?

@@rusher2937 I am always wanting to fly in BMS!!

I am 2A3X5B

@@grvbbsmusic 2A375 "A" Originally F22s now I am AFOTEC at Nellis for the F35s. I am currently learning about the aircraft and ALIS it is very interesting comparing it with the 22.

@@AviationPlus ah God ol *cough* Alice *cough*

You're welcome, Michael.

"All designs are tradeoffs."

Lol “the most expensive and jacked up fighter ever made”

To make Lockheed money. It's a pile of shit.

Thats why the US air force is buying more F-15 and want a new F-16

@@Karl-Benny But isn’t the F35 Destroying F15s and 16s at Red Flag each month?!🥴

You're welcome.

The volume of information openly available on the F-35 surprises me really. Most of what I've seen should never have seen the light of day, but I think all the negative press has pushed people to talk and release more and more info that can cumulatively be compiled to paint an extremely detailed picture of what it is, and what it is capable of. Lower classification was part of the program because they simply would not be able to develop and test it like they have, had they been under the same restrictions as the HAVE BLUE and SENIOR TREND programs.

My guess is the latter, otherwise F-15s would have them.

Imagine what the Aggressor pilot was thinking, especially as he was listening while watching him wing rock and dispensing flares. Hilarious!

Hope you don't mind waiting.

@@FighterPilotPodcast harsh! Those AWACS guys must work their butts off!

@@slammerf16 Oh, I didn't mean they're not important but rather that we don't have a guest lined up yet. The problem of the written word is it lacks the non-verbal accompaniment that provides additional meaning.

@@FighterPilotPodcast ah sorry! Well, I'll be waiting too. Keep up the great work! Thank you for your great podcasts

Hope to eventually, xbird22, just need to find the right guest.

Welcome!

Thanks, Justin. 🤜🤛

True.

@Kaizaro123 Sprey was essentially involved in drawing up specifications for the F-16 back when it was the Red Bird program. Red Bird had no radar except one for the gunsight. It was a purely guns and heaters aircraft, what the F-16 eventually became was not at all what he envisioned. It is also worth noting he was hardly an aeronautical engineer. NAVAIRSYSCOM wrote this after he presented them with a ridiculous proposal for VF-XX. "common with past papers by the same author, this study contains many fallacious assumptions, half-truths, distortions, and erroneous extrapolations. Unsubstantiated opinions are presented as facts. Any rebuttals give the appearance of arguments against the rudimentary virtues of simplicity, high performance,and low cost." (Michel III, 124).

@@FighterPilotPodcast Except with german Eurofighter pilots who , after an exercice with the USAF, described the F-35 as a one turn fighter...they said «it falls out of the sky like a piano»...10 BFM engagements...germans win 8 with 2 inconclusive...F-35 wins none...

Opponents here in Canada are still basing their arguments on old data. It's maddening!

@@yxeaviationphotog after listening to the podcast twice, I felt the guest is mostly trying to defend the aircraft more than praising it. Jello's questions are pretty good, pressing the guest without being unpolite. I don't think old school Jello was that impressed with the 3 variants or the easy-to-fly nature of the F-35.

Everyone I've talked to is hanging in there, Lance. 👍

I'm impressed at how the sequence in which you arrange interviews. The F22 followed by F35. I always wondered about these aircraft. I worked on C 141A&B in USAF 1979 - 84. I only dealt with A10 F104 F111 in airplane mechanic training at Sheppard Air base Wichita Falls TX. Always wondered about the newer F18 , 22 & F35. Thank you for all the enlightenment. I have had slight interaction with test pilots but not in such detail.

I remember senior USAF F-4E pilots attitude towards the F-15 and F-16. "We can carry AIM-9L now too!" Senior pilots often don't have the option to convert because the military has calculated how much money it will take to send them to fighter conversion training, compared that with how much time they have left in service for their pay grade, and determined that it isn't worth it. Many of them know this down inside, so it's hard to have anything good to say about the new technology they wish they could fly that brand new 20-something-old Lieutenants will be flying for the next 10-18 years of their careers. The few that actually get to keep flying that then get in the new fighters realize how many lessons learned have been applied to the new jets, and how much more capable it makes them as the re-learn how to use better systems. There are some excellent pilot perspectives from guys that flew F-100s, A-37s, and A-7Ds who converted to the F-16A. Also, guys who got into Hornets as nuggets while all their seniors were A-7E drivers that converted to the F/A-18A/C who still treated the Hornet like an A-7E with how they ran their mission profiles, ignored the sensor capabilities in A2A, and missed out on at least 20 more A2A intercepts in Desert Storm as a result. The biggest complaints from fighter pilots about 4th Gen cockpits is the excess workload associated with having to manage the radar modes, altitude bands, ranging bands, and azimuth, while looking at the HUD, then back to the radar, then over at the RWR, then back to the radar, then back to the HUD, and fuse that information into their imagination in order to form a relevant 3D picture of what was happening in front of them. They would develop a cyclical scanning sequence of these sensors that is critical to performing an intercept, all while manning the comms aspect of it with their mates, much of which was hand signals from really close formation flying so they didn't broadcast omni-directional RF into the EMCON environment. Nobody misses that type of man-machine interface after getting in the F-35. Dating back to the 1970s at least, fighter pilots said it would be great if they could have that information and sensor interface in a wide FOV helmet. They started designing and testing that type of system with the AFTI F-16 in 1978, with initial aircraft configuration delivered in 1980. The AFTI F-16 HMTDS slaved the FLIR pods and radar to the pilot's reticle in the helmet. It also had voice commands and interface with a large library of phrases and words, but was sensitive and unreliable due to specific voice attenuation of the pilot under greater than 1G conditions. Every pilot who fell in love with their F-15, F-16, or F/A-18 that has converted to the F-35 wonders how they got anything done before with those antiquated cockpit arrangements. Even F-22 pilots wish they had F-35 cockpit architecture, but you can't fit a large helmet in the Raptor's canopy dimensions, so they're getting a monocle-based reticle system comparable to some of the capabilities of JHMCS, but still have to clip-on NODs. F-35 HMD has a Night Vision camera embedded in the forehead of the helmet, so there is no need to mess with clip-on aviator's NVDs. Every problem you see with the 4th Gen fighters, you see elegant and highly-integrated solutions in the JSF, with greater reliability of those systems.

Hope it was worth the wait!

Very true Josh, thanks for the list!

In a real dogfight, ambushing another plane is about the only way it has a chance of winning. It's not designed to be a dogfighter. It doesn't have the agility to fight in a close up dogfight. In a situation like that, it's a dead dog, a $120 million coffin.

@@pizzaman5169 Like Erich Hartmann all other top aces developed ambush tactics and avoided dogfights. Dogfights are dangerous and low-yielding endeavors. ...... And if you think the F-35 is a bad dogfighter, well that's been debunked too ..Here's a little diddy from Erich himself. "I never cared much for dogfight. I would never dogfight with the Russians . Get the highest altitude and if possible come out of the sun…. Ninety percent of my attacks were surprise attacks. If I had a success I took a coffee break and watched the area again. Finding the enemy depended purely on being where the action was on the ground and on visual look out. Ground stations called us by radio indicating the position of the enemy by a coordinate system on our maps…………………. If I covered the sky I preferred a full power attack, sun attack from below because you could spot the enemy from very far against the white cloudy sky. The pilot who sees the other first has already half of the victory…………………………………… The second step of my tactic was the point of decision, that is you see the enemy first and you decide to attack immediately or to wait for a better situation or maneuver to gain a better position or not to attack at all .' To repeat from above 'Ninety percent of my attacks were surprise attacks" "The pilot who sees the other first has already half of the victory" It's how they'll fight the F-35 with the advantage of high-tech that Hartmann did with tactics without the high-tech.

@@777Outrigger SMH ! In WWII they had no cockpit radar. They still flew seat of your pants tactics. With today's sensors, the odds of any sneaking are greatly diminished. Do you think an F-35 can take on an F-22? or Russia's new planes? The old out of the sun tactic of the Japanese Air Force is null & void.

@@pizzaman5169 The F-35 is rarely detected in exercises, and I know that the F-35 has flown against fighters with the most recent AESA radars. It's called stealth. and stealth combined with Electronic Warfare, when needed, is doubly deadly. .... but it's usually not needed. The F-35 will see you first,, which means you die.

@@777Outrigger A big problem with the plane is that they want it to do too much. It can never replace the planes they hope it can & do the proper job for which ever iteration of the F-35 they want. If the F-35 comes up against a fighter in the vain of the Raptor, kiss it goodbye. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-WV_fIRTmfZU.html

Thank goodness it was only training! 🤪

brellfan with flare lol

@@FighterPilotPodcast Although I guess it depends because you aren't gonna reform on a burning smoke ploom.

A. I. If you form up on a Mig you’ve got bigger problems than not knowing where lead is.

Formed on a dead enemy's wing, no less. What a boss! xD

There’s another F-35 episode in our catalog; check that one out too.

@@FighterPilotPodcast Nice, i'll put it on the list :D

Entirely possible that I missed that point, and many others.

Thanks very much, EnvyC. My analogies sometimes fall flat but that one seemed to work. I appreciate the feedback.

If we're nitpicking. The US is the only user of the F-35C. While aside from the Brits, the Italians and Japanese also bought the F-35B. Which is interesting because they want to fly them from their DDH's. While Korea wants to fly F-35B's presumably from their Dokdo and/or the future LPH they are planning. And Singapore also wants F-35B's for it's dispersed operations capabilities because they will only operate from 2 airbases in the future.

Thanks. Cinco is the bomb!

😎

Israel has proven the F-35 is an extremely dangerous opponent :). I'd say the controversy about its performance has been practically settled.

@Till This Day UK has been a co-developer of JSF tech from the start, especially the B variant. UK did most of the baseline digital flight control system work for STOVL with the VAAC Harrier, which transferred over to the X-35B. They even had UK test pilots in the X-35B program, and a continuous stream of test pilots jointly collaborating with the JSF test centers all over the US. F-35B with Meteor is way overkill unfair advantage in A2A. Working in conjunction with Typhoons loaded with Meteors makes a lot of sense as the UK continues to integrate the capabilities of both aircraft types. Penetrating JSF providing guidance for Meteors launched from Typhoons is a brutal capability to consider.

Right?

Well, I'm hoping to remain on the good graces of the company that designed the X-32 😉

@@FighterPilotPodcast Hahaha, I thought so!

Thank you, Michal. By self-criticism I simply always want to do better than I did. Perhaps not a bad thing in healthy doses.

You're welcome, Ken.

I stumbled into this channel after 74 gear and Mentour pilot. It is dynamic & informative and welcome. I appreciate how you guys compared it with video games & sim. The sequence is amazing . Sunshine then Cinco...Thank you. Continue.

These pilots know its career suicide to talk bad about the 35.. the 35 is garbage...

@@charlesbukowski9836 so you're saying that these guys don't have a problem flying junk with their lives on the line? I think they would have found a way to get it out if what you say is true. The reports I have heard about the problems are very suspect however, from people that either have an agenda or just trying to get attention.

No doubt. 👍

Good to know!

Fair enough. Thanks.

I think a person on scene can do a better job supporting troops on the ground in dynamic conditions.

I think we are a long way away from drones doing CAS missions. Now as far as strikes against other ground targets we are very close.

We haven't built a single role fighter since the F-15C. The F-16, F/A-18, and F-15E have all been multirole. The F-22A and F-35 are better described as Omnirole, since they add continuous ISR, networked AWACS, VLO penetration and intercept, and Offensive Electronic Warfare.

LRRPFco52 - Actually the F-16 was designed as air superiority day fighter. It was until later the air force realized it's multi role capability. The F-15E is just a F-15C that has been buffed up to turn it into the a multi role fighter. So basically the only purpose built multi role fighters that US have produce are the F-18 and F-35. The F-22 is still pretty much only an air superiority fighter with very limited air to ground capability. I believe the F-22 can only carry the SDB's (small diameter bomb). But it would be a waste of the F-22 to use it for air to ground missions when there are so many other aircraft that could do the job as well or better.

@@mississippirebel1409 I lived through all this, so I'll share what I saw happen from the perspective of being very close to the program. The YF-16 was designed as a day Lightweight Fighter. The USAF had more interest in a single engine replacement for its F-4 & A-7D fleet as an attack aircraft that could self-escort and defend itself if necessary, since they already had the F-15A to focus on air superiority. Even before they went into F-16 production, the USAF requested General Dynamics to increase the airframe size, TOGW, and expand its Air-to-ground capabilities as a priority, while not expanding the A2A weapons beyond the existing M61 & AIM-9. This was done with the F-16 Full Scale Development (FSD) birds. As they worked the FSD F-16s, those A2G capes quickly evolved in the mid-late 1970s and were incorporated into the production F-16A Blocks 1 & 5. The main system that added A2A capability in the FSD Vipers and production F-16As was the addition of the APG-66 Fire Control Radar. This allowed a flight of F-16s to have some limited BVR SA, without a BVR missile until much later in the F-16C (with the APG-68/AIM-120 combo).

@@mississippirebel1409 The F-15E has some important airframe and powerplant differences, as well as landing gear, radar, cockpits, and avionics. It's quite different from the F-15C. Was also very close to that program when my dad did JDAM integration on the Mud Hen. F-22A Block 30s and above carry 1000lb JDAMs and SDB I, with significant A2G expanded capes with radar ground-mapping and other relevant upgrades for the precision penetration strike mission set. It is a very capable strike platform in a high density IADS net, that can pivot into aerial raping and networked Airborne Warning & Control platform.

There is a lot of negativity about F35, because of foreign propaganda

Its 2023 now. Glad y'all made it through. Keep up the good work.

I believe they do that mostly for ferry missions, like crossing oceans

F-22 nope. Can't see 6 low. Doesn't have the DAS nor the helmet.

We don't spend much effort (or money) on promoting the show. Figure word will get out eventually.

It depends. As more countries develop their own 5th gen platforms the more our headstart into this arena becomes important. Currently both Russia and China have stealth programs that are way behind the US but will improve with time. The US has a jump on this because of the length of time that they have been operating stealth technology. This also means that they have been working on ways to counter it. So not necessarily a weakness, and like they said in the podcast. The F 35 wasn't ever designed for visual range engagement with other aircraft, and the ir base sensor system is not only useful for sams, but could definitely spot aircraft that are trying to get close enough to engage it. The 35 is more of a huge link in the data chain than anything else, and when you have the entire picture of the combat space you have a huge advantage.

Makes sense.

If the big bugs are all ironed out and the cost is down, then I'd be all for it. Glad we aren't in the beta testers.

@@nullterm But bugs have been ironed out for the most part and cost per aircraft is already down.

LRRPFco52 hah, minus "Yeah we get more info than the AWACS" lol

@@IntrusiveThot420 There's an F-22 pilot interview where he said he was able to discriminate all the fighters in a 4-ship from considerable range and call out each one's ID and altitude with resolution the E-3 never had. F-35 net can do that in spades and blast through NCTR as if it didn't matter. Fused sensor resolution has gotten to the point where PID is well beyond aircraft reco, and threat sensor profile is displayed 3 dimensionally.

The 1990s era Aim 9X can launch at a target 90 degrees off the front of the aircraft. Once the targeting capability gets to 180 degrees, the F-35 can fly straight and still attack aircraft from any angle. The F-35 also has a friend or foe targeting capability, but i don't know if the missiles do.

@@orlock20 Isreal has a missile that does that now. I've seen test fights in dcs which while not probably accurate beyond best guess, that gave the F 22 nightmares in a dogfight with an F 16 equipped with the missile. That thing is a game changer for close quarters.

Yes they are. My airline is flying something like 15% of the flights they were a year ago. However, in accepting stimulus money from the government they are prohibited from furloughing any pilots until at least September so I'm safe for now.

@@FighterPilotPodcast Good to hear. Well it may not mean much from an internet stranger but god bless and good luck!

@@IntrusiveThot420 It's all good, thank you. Glad to see some people don't use the anonymity of this to be schmucks. 😎

Boogieman - +++ would buy :)

Heard that now too, but not sure why.

@@FighterPilotPodcast Because it's stealthy and dangerous!

Pretty similar to AV-8B 25mm gun, like 2/3rds? F-35 has some fancy rate of fire management to try to be more efficient with it.

Listened again and understand that LtCol Hamilton was actually referring to the entire system, or ILFPS. All good, but good to have the recognition for LM on the lift fan. Thanks! Love the podcast!

Yes and no. A human, cow, dog, deer etc. will show up as a fuzzy dot. The pilot might not see the difference between a heard of cows and a vehicle convoy which is how Mover (a RU-vidr) got his call sign. If you want to see humans as humans, then use M-TADS.

Exactly my thought! :-D But I think this impression comes from the fact that F-35 has been mentioned a lot in other episodes: F-22, 4th gen vs 5th gen, listeners' questions etc.

There was a very brief Aircrew Interview British F-35B pilot interview.

Angle of attack use to be important in dog fighting because of the capability of the weapon system. In WW 2, the enemy fighter had to be in front of the attacking aircraft and at a certain range since the machine guns were tilted slightly toward the propeller. When missiles were introduced, the target could be 15 degrees away from the front of the aircraft. In the 1990s, some missiles allowed the target to be 90 degrees away from the aircraft. Once the targeting ability gets to 180 degrees, then the fighter can fly straight and send a missile to any target around it.

You'll forgive us for not answering your question.

@@FighterPilotPodcast Yep, I realized that after I'd posted. I know you can't comment, but after thinking about it I realized that it would probably work from all relative altitudes against anything that depends on CW illumination.