It's been in development, sucking down money, for 20 years, and it's just now coming into squadron service. It lost five out of five mock engagements with an F16 last year. The cost per aircraft is outta sight, maybe $80-90 million. It won't turn very hard, g-limited to like 6 G. Plenty of jet fighters going back 50-60 years can pull 8 G, no sweat.
They sent a demo model to the Paris air show where it pulled enough fancy low altitude maneuvers to catch some attention.
Aviation Week ran a three page piece where two experienced individuals debated the merits of the aircraft. Pierre Sprey, experienced aircraft designer, panned the F35. Retired Marine Corps colonel David Berke likes the F35. Both men agreed that the demo sent to the Paris air show had been stripped way down to lighten it and improve it's maneuverability. Neither man offered any numbers to support his position. Numbers like range, speed, payload, maneuverability, rate of climb, maxt takeoff weight, landing speed. Nothing solid or hard, just unsupported "I like it" or "I don't like it"
Colonel Berke said nice things about the F-35's blended display system, claimed that it gave the pilot more intelligence to make better decisions. Back in the day, all the pilot cared about was range and bearing to target. Radar can do this. Ground radar and the radar intercept officers give target location to the pilot over voice radio. When the fighter closes to like 100 miles, his on board radar will see the target. They have spent a lot of time and money "blending" the radar, the IR, the ground datalink, and other stuff onto a single big cockpit display all at the same time. They claim this is cooler than just showing the radar on the main cockpit display. Maybe, but radar is the sensor that does the heavy lifting, might as well concentrate upon the radar, that's where the targets are.
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