When a T-38 can effectively kill the F-22 is a dogfight, it only proves to say that any fighter can effectively kill another in a dogfight. A close in gun fight will always pit the pilot's skill against another & the better trained and tactically clever pilot will kill he other. As for the F-35, it will be the most advanced fighter to have ever flown and it represents a neat compromise, it will be a jack of all trades without being particularly good at any one particular domain.
Cross posting from BR
brilliant member named brar_w, quite knowledgeable posts from him.
^^
http://fightersweep.com/2548/f-35-v-f-1 ... e-garbage/
http://fightersweep.com/2574/f-35-vs-f- ... -thoughts/
http://fightersweep.com/2698/f-35-worst-fighter-ever/
The F-15 routinely looses to the F-16 in an energy dogfight..So does the F-18..Yet they also do well in certain other DACT conditions, not to mentions the F-15 destroys it when overall air-combat envelope is exploited. The T-38 has gun kills on the F-22A, with a video on youtube as a reference. The F-35 did not face an F-16 in a dogfight, it used an F-16 as a reference to study and analyze the CLAWS on an DEVELOPMENT test Jet so that recommendations could be provided to the development-test team in terms of making changes to an Under-development CLAWS as they go through test-points towards a full software build operational evaluation towards the beginning of 2018..There are fighters that manage energy better than others..The F-18 and F-16 are stark contrasts..simply put if you fight against an F-16 using an F-18 but tactics that would favor the F-16, you would loose...Same thing if the F-16 fights a Hornet using Hornet's tactics...As even the typhoon drivers agree too, below 15,000 feet in a pure gun-fight the Viper is pretty much as good as you are going to get if you are fighting in "its envelope"...It was designed around energy maneuverability, as a light weight no nonsense gun-fighter..However all fighters that are different or inferior to it in certain envelopes such as the F-15, and F-18 C/D and E/F still get plenty of kills on it. This particular outing was to test the F-35, not for it to go out and fight no holds barred against an F-16...That will be done elsewhere by operational folks (not test pilots) at the weapons school !!
Read the 3 articles posted above, they are written by a pilot with many hours on the F-16 and F-18..and one does not particularly like the F-35 as a program, yet understands the difference between sending a development test jet out fitted with test kit (and without mission systems and avionics) to use an aircraft as a reference in a series of BFM to test, and develop recommendations to further tweak the CLAWS and sending an operational aircraft with all its bells and whistles against another in a similar state and letting them duel out to see who comes out on top. Apparently some in the blogosphere don't see a difference but can we really blame them? I mean, one of the persons who has an extremely successfully blog (at the moment) and loves to make GIF's of about everything is in the business of selling hot dogs and ice-cream floats..thats his level of expertise
Of course the internet changes a lot
As the veteran pilot puts it -
Quote:
But at the end of the day, this aircraft has done one thing no other aircraft has ever been able to do – turn an entire generation of aviation bloggers, journalists, and commenters into overnight military aviation experts.