Comments by "Titanium Rain" (@ChucksSEADnDEAD) on "The F-16 Fighting Falcon Should Still Be Feared" video.

  1. mickael delatre the irony is that the final version of the F16 blows the original vision out of the water and it's success in exports was exactly because multirole is much more useful than pure fighters for other NATO countries which barely need fighter aircraft. The F20 Tigershark was the pure fighter the Fighter Mafia wanted, and it was a massive failure. If the F16 were a short-range guns and heaters only fighter it would have failed and the whole of Europe would have used Tornados and Mirages.
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  2. +wigon the block 3F software is coming, the whole "it's not as maneuverable" talk is outdated as hell. It compared favorably among F-15C pilots and while F-16 pilots preferred their own ride the F-35 was only a notch below. Vastly more expensive? The issue is that you're comparing early block F-16s that sell for 25 million and assuming that the US will be using those. If the US were to buy new manufactured F-16s they would cost about 60 million each, at least, while the F-35A costs have gone down to 85 million.
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  3. +wigon let's look at the physical limits of the F-35: sleek due to not necessarily needing external pylons and weapons/bags mounted on them, huge thrust, huge lift vector from all that body lift. The point wasn't that software makes the airframe "better". The problem is that you're still using outdated news of the F-35's maneuverability from before the software updates, meaning it was severely crippled from a software standpoint and it wasn't being flown anywhere near the physical limits. "As for replacing old parts, this is already what the Airforce is doing" And in the end it's a congressional con job to spread jobs through the 50 states just like the F-35. You people will single out Lockheed-Martin and accuse them of being scammers (the whole Military Industrial Complex is corporate welfare of the highest order) while ignoring that any sort of big contracts involving American factories and American blue-collar jobs are a HUGE political tool during reelections. And guess what, the taxpayer will still pay for those parts like they were made out of solid gold due to inherent government inefficiency and inability to stay within budget. Now ask yourself, if you're so critical of people being Lockheed-Martin shills and having an interest in the success of the JSF, then what about whoever told you that we'd save money updating the F-16s? Could that person or media outlet have any interest on election outcomes or receiving contracts for the manufacture of F-16 parts?
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  4. +wigon you do realize that the F-35, like the F-16, is controlled by fly-by-wire, right? This means that the computer governing the maneuvers is entirely software dependent. A lot of the testing regarding the F-35's maneuverability has dealt with problems with the software being conservative (so that they don't lose planes and kill pilots) but lacking optimization and thus wasting potential. One of the problems, for example, was the software taking too long to enter and depart from high AoA maneuvers, the more time it takes the more drag you suffer so the more energy your plane loses. Since it was perfectly safe to "teach" the software to let the plane pull those high AoA maneuvers they patched it and as a result the plane became much more nimble. "Also F-16's don't need to be reproduced, only updated" You're either assuming they'll never reach the limit of their service hours, or that keeping factories pumping out parts to replace aging and worn parts isn't effectively the same as making new F-16s, only not using new parts on new planes but rebuilding entire sections of aircraft with new parts while retaining the same tail numbers (Ship of Theseus, anyone?).
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  5. +wigon ah yes, Soldier of Fortune magazine. Because they're world renowned experts in aviation /sarcasm. It's a rag. Do you realize that your own link says "Breaking Defense had a rare interview with the Air Force in 2014" - meaning that their post is quoting sources from 3 years back? So no, the article isn't current even though it was posted in 2017. You're calling bullshit on what is common knowledge? In the Paris air show it was flying with Block 3i software which limits the F-35 to 7g and 50º AoA even though the AF-2 testbed has already flown 9g+ and 100º AoA - you're disputing the fact that software upgrades are used to unlock the true potential of the F-35. If you had bothered to read the "damning" report that said it couldn't dogfight, you'd have read that the report specifically claims that loads experienced by the airframe were nowhere near the limits so the F-35 had more maneuverability on tap but the software itself caused the energy losses - they recommended increasing the pitch rate (aka telling the software to allow the aircraft to turn more degrees/second) so that the F-35 did not have to waste energy entering and departing from high AoA. They recommended updating the software to allow the pilot greater yaw rate control authority. Increase alpha onset. The document the F-35 haters have been jerking off to literally says that the airplane was being limited by the conservative software limitations and that it should be changed to allow better energy retention and better dogfighting abilities. Look at this video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9re9tJckTlk at 5:24. She explains that the F-16 dogfight tests were meant to test the command laws of the airplane - which I have already explained to you but you called bullshit. She states that she's flying Block 2b (that was back in 2015). Here, two sources on the Norwegian pilot who contradicted the 2015 report: https://theaviationist.com/2016/03/01/heres-what-ive-learned-so-far-dogfighting-in-the-f-35-a-jsf-pilot-first-hand-account/ and https://www.defensenews.com/air/2016/03/01/norwegian-f-35-pilot-counters-controversial-dogfighting-report/ FROM 2016 WHICH MEANS THE CAPABILITIES WERE NOWHERE NEAR THE UPCOMING BLOCK 3F
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  6. bandholm the F35A costs 85 million right now, it's a competitive price vs 4+ Gen aircraft
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  7. THAAD BATTERY EXTRA RANGE the F35 is a F16 on steroids. How would it be regrettable to improve?
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  8. Tyngchinchilla Chang the F35 came from the Joint Strike Fighter program, it was a JOINT venture with exports in mind.
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  9. +bandholm your assumptions are correct. However, it's important to know that a missile's rocket only typically has a boost phase, or a boost-sustain which typically give the missile around 10 seconds of powered flight. Outside that window, pilots often do what is called (if I'm not mistaken) an F-Pole maneuver, in which they force the missile to turn in a direction they don't want to go without actually increasing the rate of closure, and then turn into the intended direction. The unpowered missile is pretty much a glider on a ballistic path, and if it had to turn again it will bleed a lot of energy and become unable to keep with a plane. At close range the issue changes - although there's missiles capable of pulling 40 G's, when powered the missile is much faster which means the turn radius is much larger than a slower airplane. This means that a 9 G pulling airplane can out turn a missile capable of pulling hundreds of Gs. The issue is, modern missiles probably have computing power to work out the least stressful maneuver necessary to meet the airplane. So if you're pulling 9 Gs the missile won't try to follow your tail, it will turn in a predictive pursuit and then slam from the side (almost like an "S"). So it all comes down to how modern is the missile being fired. " anywere near the power to detect incoming missiles, at a range where they can outfly them" typically what aircraft use is a RWR, which is a passive sensor which does not need high power - it detects the radar emissions of either the launching aircraft or the incoming missile. The strength of modern missiles is that they can be fired in Track-While-Scan mode and have GPS/inertial navigation course corrections meaning they won't tell the victim that there's a radar lock until the missile is close, becomes independent and turns it's own locking radar on. Meanwhile, the F-35 actually has an always on passive electro-optical system with 360 degree coverage which is said to be able to detect missile launches. "But air-to-air missiles are mostly heat-seekers, with a targeting radar in it as well" not quite. Both the radar and IR sensor would require line of sight to the enemy plane. But IR guided missiles can be slaved to the aircraft's radar and given these inputs it's what probably allows the missile to perform trajectory computing rather than just doing a pure pursuit on the IR signature like the old heat seekers. "It is not really its job anyway, but that of the bombers" Actually multirole-fighters have been doing the role of bombers for quite a while. The F-4 Phantom II was able to carry a bomb load greater than the B-17 Flying Fortress over Vietnam, the F-16 was used by the Israelis in a long range operation to bomb out a nuclear reactor, etc. The major advantage of the F-35 is that you can clear out defenses before an assault due to it's stealth capabilities allowing for more paths over enemy territory where the radar coverage isn't sufficient to detect stealth aircraft and if needed, firing missiles that lock onto the radar emissions to clear the way for conventional aircraft. The F-35 will serve the Marines for the same purpose as the Harrier - clearing the way for an amphibious invasion. Again, most of your assumptions are correct but modern air combat has many intricacies and caveats.
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