* In STEALTH and STRIKE mode, with the F-35A&C, the USAF and USN essentially get a supersonic F117 with a similar payload BUT a strike fighter that is much more survivable, can self-escort and one that is significantly more combat capable thanks to its integrated avionics, sensor suite, speed, agility, and the fact that PGM's have advanced to a point that you can now effectively use a 500 lb or 250 lb bomb where a 1000 lb would have been used earlier. While this does not negate the use of 1000 and 2000 lb bombs, it does mean that many missions such as SEAD & CAS can use smaller munitions because they are as or more accurate and as or more lethal against the types of targets one is likely to encounter for such missions (radars, artillery, rockets, tanks, mobile-C2C, launchers, EW kit, decoys, etc etc).
* For fixed, fortified C2C targets in STEALTH MODE, the F-35A&C offer the exact same capability as the F117 that attacked these very targets in the Gulf War - i.e. 2000 pound bomb capacity internally (2 x 2000lb) with the added ability to exploit its massive SA advantage and EA/EW capability in addition to self-escort given it carries a pair of AMRAAM's along with those bombs which the F117 didn't.
* In an Air Defense suppressed environment, the F-35A&C using its internal+external stores can carry more payload farther than either the F-16C, or the F/A-18 Classic Hornet. In fact when stealth is not a consideration, the F-35A&C begins to resemble a slightly smaller F-15E (Lets say F-15E minus CFT's) than an F-16C or F/A-18 it is meant to replace. This is for many reason, but primarily due to the new operational requirements and the fact that it carries such a large amount of fuel internally for a single engine fighter.
* The performance in air-air, depends upon mission requirements obviously but if you take this out to actual combat requirements that exist today i.e at the ranges that the USAF deals with, the F-35A&C are fairly comparable to the F-16 and F-18 when those aircraft are kitted for those ranges and for those payloads EVEN if one is to look at metrics that were relevant at the times these aircraft were designed. The F-35 gets this from being clean, and having organic growth of growing to 6 internal AMRAAM's in the near-mid term. F-16's carry a lot of drag in EFT's, pods, and external stores and while you will continue to see the F-16 be better at sustained turns than a modestly loaded F-35, the F-35 will be closer to or better than the Super Hornet in slow speed, high alpha regime as the Norwegian Combat Pilot claims.
* In the air-air domain the F-35 will be using its Stealth, its Avionics architecture that allows for superior Situational Awareness and teaming (In BVR & WVR), and its high alpha performance in WVR. Those are its strengths. While the F-16 has its own strengths as do most other aircraft each also come with their own weaknesses compared to the F35.
While many argue over the relevance of WVR, there is a general belief and consensus that the ratio of BVR to WVR kills in air-combat would continue to favor BVR as it has over the last few decades (The CSBA study also highlights this). While WVR would not be totally neglected and is something that is to be taken seriously, it would obviously be one consideration amongst many while analyzing combat aircraft performance requirements and trades.
Similarly, air-forces around the globe would continue to analyze what in WVR actually provides the advantage and how technology can be leveraged to get an edge. Here, more and more lethal WVR weapons, HMD's, and all aspect 360 degree EO/IR sensors mated with high performance mission systems capable of continuously tracking bogeys in a fur ball will continue to play an ever increasing role. MMI, and the role of technology in making WVR more lethal CANNOT be under-stated SINCE analysis, after analysis has shown that in Vietnam and beyond the LOOSER often had poor Situational Awareness, and often didn't even know he was being targeted - The latest CSBA study again concludes the same.
The, Su-30 and Su-35 and F-22 are the pinnacle of air combat maneuverability with the F-16 still standing out in its sustained performance especially at lower altitudes. However, there are limits to where you can grow. It would be expensive, and impractical to go much beyond 9G..High AOA performance again comes with challenge and is reliant on propulsion and acceleration allowing you to light up and get out from a very slow fight. Similarly, a lot of this is negated to some extent if your engagements continue to go higher in altitude since that effects your propulsion. Additionally, the time-compression and the time you actually have to engage an opponent in WVR depends on a lot of things, one being the fuel state you find your self post BVR jousting which given RCS and sensor-parity can eat a lot of your reserves since you are constantly reacting to counter your opponent's BVR posture. Stealth actually allows you more freedom to maneuver since engagement envelopes and detection ranges are shrunk.
Its tough to envision significant combat aircraft agility advantages from where the Super Flankers, raptors or other US experimental crafts have taken us. Therefore, combat performance edge would have to come from somehwhere else...Stealth, Speed, Avionics, Situational Awareness, manned-unmanned teaming, weapons lethality, directed enegy weapons for defensive and offensive ops and combined kinetic and non-kinetic offensive weapons (DEW's and EW) are all areas of investment that will continue to enhance current and future combat aircraft - more so than agility even though WVR is still considered a serious capability to develop and counter.
With Survivability, Range, Persistence, Magazine depth and Loiter time being the most important design requirements if the USAF (and the USN) takes a more Pacific (China) centric approach to future capability requirements (for fighters) we may see a cranked kite, or a flying wing-like 6th generation fighter that may trade some agility for the things mentioned above. In fact it may not even be a 9G capable aircraft if the trade means significantly lower all-aspect RCS, higher magazine capacity etc. If the overall objective of being agile, and maneuverability is to be in a better position to counter a bogey, or to kill your opponent then by all means, other areas which allow for the same must be actively pursued and a trade made after looking at all the capability in toto. If you don't do this, you are essentially only keeping one performance metric relevant because you are biased towards it. What if going form 9G to 7G means an order of magnitude reduction in RCS? or Directed energy weapons that can shoot down incoming missiles? or say 6 extra BVR and/or WVR missiles? Is that a good trade? These are the sort of things that the academic side of research and development looks at since it must run all these trades before issuing requirements and hence why the lead-up to an RFP is often as long (time wise) as the development phase. The ATF lead up was nearly 2 decades, and this involved massive wargaming, capability development, pilot studies, and air-combat academia actively researching design trades.
It has often been said here that no nation, no design team designs an inferior product on purpose. When I have spoken about trades I have been often rebutted by no design team would deliberately go for higher RCS, lower speed, lower agility, lower weapons load etc etc because they are spending so many billions on design why would they cheap out on xyz...However, combat aircraft/weapons system design is about making trades and you do a lot of analysis to determine your needs, requirements and provide your designers and teams the trade-space to work with. There is a reason the F-35 has a top speed of Mach 1.6, the F-22 around Mach2..why the F-35 is single engine, why it has a particular size of weapons bay..etc.. - If not you'd have a fighter with Mach 5 top speed, the stealth of a B-2, the combat load capacity of a B-52 and ofcourse the DEW capacity of a YAL. It will also most likely bankrupt the world economy
The F-35 in a dogfight – what have I learned so far?
http://nettsteder.regjeringen.no/kampfl ... ed-so-far/
The best description I have ever heard for the F-35A, has been that it is essentially an F-16C Blk 50/60 with stealth, and incorporating all the advances in avionics and sensors/sensor fusion [thanks primarily to the efforts to develop the Advanced Tactical Fighter] over the last 2-3 decades. In that context it came about essentially because the USAF knew the F-16, tracing its heritage back to a no non-sense light weight fighter, had severe capability growth issues going forward and wanted a fighter to begin at size that the f-16 had grown to become. The other trades were influenced by stealthifying it , i.e. the high internal fuel carriage requirement was there because it had to do a mission of a heavily kitted F-16 block 50/52 on internal fuel (EFT means no stealth) and an internal bays were added for similar reasons. From that angle it makes perfect sense..Its essentially a more survivable and capable F-16 block 50, an aircraft the USAF is more than satisfied with. The only issue I see is that of sustainability, because a larger, stealthier aircraft will of course be more costly to sustain over 4-5 decades. Hopefully the PHM system can level the playing field and make cost increase marginal and something the higher capability can offset.
This :
Becomes This :
And its a good thing for its users. Most F-16 users (including the USAF ) operate it because it is multi-role, not because its a great light weight, low-avionics-footprint fighter as its first iteration was originally envisioned. In fact, its own designer has in the past (I think Air&Space Magazine) said that had he designed the F-16 as a multi-role fighter from the start, he would have made certain changes. Where the F-16 lacks is in survivability and the ability to penetrate integrated air-defenses. It also lacks in growth space, range, and payload at range. The F-35 remedies that. In that sense its a conservative design. Where its different is that it utilizes an extremely complex, complicated and expensive avionics architecture that provides a great deal of the combat effectiveness and survivability because its not merely a bunch of independent systems integrated to function as one (ala F-22, rafale, Super Hornet etc) but it is a set of apertures (minus the DAS) that are controlled, run, and operated by a single set of processors..The F-35 for example lacks a radar in the traditional sense..the entire back end is practically missing on the AN/APG-81, and most of the heavy processing is done by the ICP...
