Indeed, the F-16 was success, as well the F-18. F-15 was too a success, at its way. Another good example but now well retired was F-14. But the entire generation of planes of that era was really good. F-35 was beaten in dogfight by a F-16 in excercises. I don't think it's a good plane because it's heavy and want to do everything planes aren't good design either.
Are you sure that the F16 was a success? After all, it was decried as a horrible plan early in its program and service just like the F-35[1]. Also, that F-35 that lost to an F-16 was software limited undergoing testing for the explicit purpose of testing its limits. The plane has had those limits raised since and it has done very well.
>The F-35 was not built for dogfighting. It is supposed to sense and launch long before the opponents are even in visual range.
The very same hubris caused trouble in Vietnam, which were fixed with rapid re-introduction of guns to fighters, and dogfighting to fighter schools. Sad to see this lesson having been lost.
I'll go on a limb and claim for publicity and political fallout reasons there will never be enough BVR RoE airspace to make BVR relevant to aircraft design.
There's a difference between the classic definition of BVR meaning slinging a missile at a blip no one has seen 30 miles away, vs the F-35 concept which is to have excellent sensor suite leading to the pilot having excellent situational awareness so the pilot can shoot down the other plane before the other plane knows they're present, etc.
Its tricky to get into visual range to visually identify the target as a mig-21 and not a 767 full of civilians without at least some dogfighting performance.
The F-35 it's multirole. single-engine, all-weather, stealth multirole combat aircraft, designed for ground-attack and air-superiority missions. So it has to deal with all kinds of dangers. It's I-want-to-do-it-all aircraft that will not outperform anyone who specializes, unless the technical advantadge is on, ie. killing by range without being seen. But F-35 could kill lesser aircrafts, maybe 3 or early 4th generations but cannot outmatch other fighters with same technology. F-22 is way better for that.
3rd gens? Really? Don't you think it's a bit unbecoming to exaggerate so much considering it has achieved 15:1 kill ratios? It's IRST capability even actually gives it the capability to spot F-22's first. Furthermore, the F-16 was do-it-all aircraft. And it did it damn well. The F-35 is even better.
New generations fighters have the same range detection. And "stealth technology" is still on claim, in fact russian radars detected many planes with ease. An F-117 was shot down too. I will not rely on that, since all the 4th gen airplanes and 5th have same capabilities.
RCS reduction specifically targets X and S band radars because those are the ones which are precise enough used for firing solutions. You need those bands in order to either direct a missile onto a target or have a active seeking missile find it's target. What you're talking about is L band radar, which has existed since the 40's. But it's use is as a early warning system. The problem is that the resolution of it is orders of magnitude worse. For it to be actually useful today you need to build a massive radar which is very power hungry. That's a perfect target for a first hour cruise missile strike.
And that's not even getting to the part that the only reason why L band can even detect F35's and F22's is because that they have features like vertical stabilizers which are too small relative to the wavelength. B2's and B21's do not have this issue.
Finally the idea that one F-117 shot down somehow invalidates that fact that the F-117's stealthiness provided it protection with 99% effectiveness is absurd. The reason why it was shot down was because of USAF's arrogance in flying identical flight paths day on day and a SAM operator realizing this and succeeding in targeting it the moment it opened it's bomb bays, when it's stealth was degraded.
