I’ve been watching the F 35 at the Baltimore Flyover this weekend. What an incredible machine. The agility and speed range that it can travel in the air is astounding.
Lucky pilots that get to fly this tech and dawn that helmet.
Lucky pilots that get to fly this tech and dawn that helmet.
Seeing this thing show off its tech in the flesh was incredible.
The ability for it too scrub off speed from full tilt at 2000 mph is just beyond imaginable.
If something is chasing you at full speed, and you can just hit the brakes mid air; suddenly the hunter becomes the prey lol
The F-15 is probably the only American jet fighter to ever get close to 2000 mph by reaching mach 2.5.
The expense and rarity of the F-35 only exacerbates this problem, you can’t afford to dangle them in front of air defense so they turn their radar on, you could loose the plane.
Better luck to be had by spotting air defense from satellites and launching cruise missiles or stealthy drones.
I don’t see a place for the F-35. To fat to dog fight, to expensive, fast, and too limited in weapons stores for real CAS missions, too expensive to keep running in the numbers we would need for an actual great powers war. Barely made sense in 1993, it really really doesn’t make sense in the modern battlefield today.
Obviously an F-35 won't be sent in alone to perform CAS in a high-threat environment (unless the situation is really desperate). But it's at least somewhat survivable. Those legacy platforms aren't survivable at all if the adversary has even basic air defenses.
Stealth doesn’t seem as critical as speed.