Albert wrote:Is not F-35 a failure anyways.
http://www.news.com.au/technology/syria ... d20aeb5085
https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... e-fighter/
Does one believe journalist articles or does one believe Air Force professionals? If the F-35 is so bad then why do Air Marshals want it? They have the knowledge to understand how it is to be used and access to the restricted information about its true capabilities.
So why do all these Air Marshals want it so bad? The F-35 is the only current aircraft that can hope to cope with modern air defences. It isn’t just the stealth but also the sensors and the way they are fused that allows the pilot to operate aggressively against intergrated air defences.
If one has a large edge in electronic warfare over a rival, older aircraft will do. For example the Israelis can feed the Syrian air defences with a false sky picture. But if there isn’t such a gap in difference in EW, then you need something like an F-35 to crack their defences.
Regarding dog fighting, the exercise cited in the article involved an F-35 operating under restricted preformance. But dog fighting isn’t that important these days. Most engagements are BVR and those that aren’t involve high off bore missiles with helmet mounted cuing.
Regarding limited missiles, new CUDA missiles are much smaller than legacy designs and more can be carried. Also, the F-35 only needs to fly stealth missions sometimes. Other times it can load up just like any other fast combat jet.
Finally, it isn’t any more expensive to operate than other top end jets (eg: Typhoon or F-15). So why not go the F-35?
It is more expensive to operate than budget jets like the Grippen and Super Hornet. Those cheaper jets are also quite reliable. A mixture of F-35s and cheap jets might work. But Germany is going expensive older gen planes. As a strike fight, the Typhoon is the worst of all worlds.