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.
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O'h dear another unamed JSF test pilot,writes a report that somehow falls into the hands of an internet blog, how unusual. Not withstanding that this report is given a security clearance of 'Unclassified' What a load of BS. I would say that a report of this nature would be at least 'Confidential' if not higher.
ReplyDeleteOne statement shows the total nonsense of this so called report.
"And to add insult to injury, the JSF flier discovered he couldn’t even comfortably move his head inside the radar-evading jet’s cramped cockpit. “The helmet was too large for the space inside the canopy to adequately see behind the aircraft.” That allowed the F-16 to sneak up on him."
The design and sensors of the F35 allows the pilots total all round vision fed through to the helmet. So they have no need to be physically searching the sky for other aircraft.
I thought that those sensors allowed the pilot to "see through" the aircraft , implying that he had to be looking that way.
DeleteIf that is the case , this is very relevent.
Apparently not, although taken from Wiki, this seems pretty comprehensive.
ReplyDeleteUnder sections 'Sensors and Avionics' and 'Helmet mounted display system' It explains how the sensors work and feed the info into the pilots helmet.
One sentence sums it up (and therefore visible no matter which way the pilot is looking)
Link:- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning_II#Sensors_and_avionics
So when a plane is beneath you, you can "see" it looking at the floor. But you still need to look in the right direction.
DeleteIf the pilot is not "looking" in the direction of the target aircraft , how does the F35/Helmet know what to show the pilot ?
DeleteHelmet mounted sights cue agile missiles to otherwise off-boresight targets , the pilot still needs to look through the eyepiece at the target.