This article was in the latest issue of Air & Space. There have been a number of articles that have ridiculed the F35 as a waste of time and money, but it is interesting to hear what the pilots think about the plane now that they are flying them.
For me, the overall message is so flattering for the airplane that it sounds more as the result of lots of press training or at least as pilots being very careful in what they say because publicly critiquing this airplane is not good for one’s career prospects.
Clearly, reading product reviews is a science :-) but I think there is some good information there. It's not all puff and PR :-).
And my experience with the journalism at Air & Space has been positive, I have read both highly critical and very insightful articles from their journalists over the years. That experience gives me some trust in them which I could understand would not come on first exposure.
I think it would also be useful for them to find 8 pilots who have both flown the new plane and are critical of it versus other aircraft designed for a similar role. That will have to wait I think until there are more flight hours on it in more situations.
What I find most interesting about these types of systems are the differences between the AA-1 version (first article) and the one they consider 'first release.' In new systems there are lots of things that change during the initial testing and evaluation. This is true of software just as much as it is hardware, although hardware takes a lot more documentation.
Seems entirely possible that the F-35 has grown into a solid piece of engineering and is great to fly from a pilot's perspective without that necessarily invalidating cost-related and overrun-related criticisms of the project.
If it had grown into a solid piece of engineering we would be hearing about it from all angles and seeing it at every airshow. There is nothing the military would rather do than demonstrate that this zillion-dollar albatross is not only still alive, but it's also not developmentally disabled.
One of the pilots comments seemed to indicate that:
"In the two years since [the 388th’s] last Red Flag exercise, the airplane itself has had some pretty significant advancements. A couple of months before the 2017 Red Flag, the Air Force declared that the squadron was what we call “initial operational capable.” So the jet still had some operating limitations—altitude, airspeed, Gs, things like that. The software on the aircraft, though very capable, still had some limitations in terms of some of the systems and some of the weapons it could control. Fast forward two years, and we’re operating with what’s referred to as full warfighting capability software. It’s a more advanced F-35 than it was two years ago."
I'm not inclined to take this article at face value. The pilots could have been cherry picked and bribed, and Lockheed-Martin is a major donor to the Air & Space Museum, the parent organization of the publisher [0].
Given that one of the main motivations for the plane's existence is support roles, I'm more interested in hearing from the people getting supported by the aircraft.
Planes aren't just for dropping bombs on people, the PR value of them is part of their power. You have to have the domestic population thinking they have the best planes.
Sadly the F-35 is failing in this latter role. At a recent air show in the UK it was the elderly Ukrainian Sukhoi machines that got the gasps of oohs and aahs from the crowd. The crowd were not what you might call communist, they just know what planes put on the best show.
There are no figures bandied around regarding the PR value of the F-35. Facts don't come into it when emotions are involved and the F-35 is fundamentally not loved or held in awe. Plenty of times the USAF have had planes that amaze everyone's inner 9 year old, the F-35 just doesn't cut it.
Meanwhile, in Russia, lots of people take pride in their war planes and believe them to be the best in the world. It could be argued with fact things that their planes are rubbish but facts have nothing to do with belief.
Ultimately it comes down to the air show, not what the pilots say, whether they are paid shills or not. And nope, there is no use for a 'Cobra manoeuvre' but the crowds lap it up, think their pilots are aces and let their kids join the armed forces on that basis.
The US isn't spending hundreds of billions just to make the people think their country is the best. I doubt most people even know what an F-18, F-22 or F-35 are.
Not a definitive combat record of all modern jets by any means and one could argue that many of the losses of MiGs from export client states were due to poor training, poor maintenance, outdated/inferior export models or having to fight Israelis constantly ;) But then again, when Russian and Israeli pilots went head to head [1] the Russian fighter planes did not really hold their own there either.
