That's been refuted now http://theaviationist.com/2016/03/01/heres-what-ive-learned-so-far-dogfighting-in-the-f-35-a-jsf-pilot-first-hand-account/

If you read the comments there, it's clear that it wasn't a performance test, but a fly by wire program trial and tune.

But of course that doesn't make head lines like sensationalism.

EDIT: Looks like Arse Technica also ran follow up story:
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/07/f-35-project-team-says-dogfight-report-does-not-tell-whole-story/

Even still I would still expect a F-16 which weighs less than 1/2, and has a better thrust to weight ratio to be fully capable of waxing the F-35 in a guns only dog fight. That's just physics. I'd also expect an even lighter and zippier F-5e to do the same to the F-16. And people did have that critism back in the early 70s.

But as I've said above many times. Dog fights haven't existed since WW1.

By the way, this whole thing is old news.
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/06/report-in-test-dogfight-f-35-gets-waxed-by-f-16/

Doesn't matter if it won the dogfight or if it could take down a whole squadron of fighters at the swipe of a touchscreen. We still don't need it.

No, but the F-16 can out accelerate the P-51, but I don't think the F-35 can out accelerate the F-16, can it?

If the stealth tech worked every time, yes, it would have it nailed. I don't think it does, and even if it does, it's methods will be 'cracked' as soon as they're known and we'll need an entire new plane with new systems. You're right, when it goes as planned. It does not always go as planned, and we don't want to lose an F-35 every time we make a mistake in predictions, do we?

I think it's more like a camouflaged sniper hiding in the trees that's taken over the responsibility for also being an artillery brigade and a front line infantry brigade.
It can't do most of what it's designed to do, can barely do what it's best at, and if it's caught, it can't defend itself.

I really don't think there's a job they have for it that can't be done by the F-15, F-16, F/A-18, F-117, B-2, A-10, etc....meaning there's no need for it at all, and we could have had hundreds of those planes for the cost of the R&D done so far for a plane that doesn't yet work, and costs a mint when it is finally deployed, not just to build but for upkeep too.

I'm pretty sure a lot of pilots in WW2, and Korea, and Vietnam would disagree about dogfighting ending in WW1 and about it being all strategy and not performance. For instance, in WW2, we kicked ass largely because a zero was made of paper and couldn't take a hit while the mustang was a flying tank....or so I've read.

I can sure think of a bunch of other things the fed could have spent $1.3 Trillion on....we could all be traveling in tubes for that much money! The Republican's could make a camp to send all Muslims to on the moon for that kind of money.

Do a search, it is completely true. The Air Force tried to play it down, saying that the test was only to test current dogfighting methods and that the F35 was designed for future conflict dogfighting which is 'going' to be stealth based and long range conflict only.

The plane is a debacle worse than the Bradley fighting vehicle, more expensive, and we are too far in to back out without embarrassing the big players.

I agree with your general point.

I personally would never consider 'replacing' the A10 with the F35.

But I still think you don't design weapons for what you need now, but to be ready for what you could need in the future.

Su-35 / Mig35, pak-fa, J-10, J-20, fighter tech is moving along in the world. The goal of systems like the F35/22 is to remain superior in any theoretical/potential future conflict. The only thing the F22/35 have to do with today's conflicts is the possibility to be shoehorned into dropping bombs on some scare crows in the middle of nowhere.

Sure, people pick on the F35 for being fat and happy - but fighters are more than turn turn turn turn shoot. They are systems to sense/detect, share info, build a battle field picture, jam opponents, strike the opponent's sensors, build situational awareness while denying the opponent his own SA. They build an environment where your forces can maneuver around enemy forces, strike key locations, and leave (without an actual fight), so that the enemy eventually finds himself with nothing left to defend, and they just quit without ever fighting. Modern fighters are an information system as much as a weapons platform.

Even in WW2 the powers learned the lesson that a good fighter is not necessarily a good pure dog fighter. The zero was the best turning fighter of the war - and it sucked. US planes would just not bother dogfighting with it. US planes would fly high above, dive down onto a zero, shoot at it, fly right by, and zoom back up. They didn't have to dogfight, because they had more speed and altitude, and the zero was helpless, it was a fighter stuck playing defense in air to air combat.

Times changed, today's tactics are not speed and altitude, they are situational awareness and detectability. It's the kind of fighting the F35 is tailored for, and it's not worth being too hard on it for not being ideal for more classical combat applications.

-scheherazade

I was going to post that video as a response. It's a cinematic trailer, nobody goes all crazy how WoW or the even better example he used of ESO, looks anything like the game, and people are picking on ED. Like he says, if all you are doing is delivering stuff then that's your choice. You could stick to the main bases and interdict people. Where's the people being upset at the ESO Siege trailer, makes it look like an exciting game rather than a 50 hour bore fest just to get to level 10 (a bit of an exaggeration, but seriously the leveling in that game was seriously slow and dull). I'm not expecting ED to be everything SC is, but then again all that fancy stuff with SC are add-ons and not all base game stuff. I've been happy with my ED purchase, enough so that I got a HOTAS just for it and seriously thinking of getting a TrackIR. I'm sure it'll be the same thing in SC whenever it actually ships the full game and you aren't in the dogfight module.

Another money grab, whenever the incoming money slows down, they make a commercial to sell me ships.

After being lured into the series by CR name and the promise of dogfight style combat, I got backstabbed when they swapped to physics based to please the vocal minority. Screw the game and CR, although their customer service was nice enough to give me back 85 percent of my original backer money.

They sold 567 of the $350 version over the weekend, which combined with other ship sales made $1.3 Million during the weekend, up for the normal $40k a day... Their total now is over $51 Million. All for a game that you can't really play yet. You can walk around your hanger, you can engage in simulated dogfights and capture the flag, and in a couple weeks a couple select ships will be able to do a race. Of course I would love to have a 300i... The game does have potential. Elite Dangerous is pretty much delivering on much of that right now, but SC can be great if it delivers on all they say they will.

All ships have rotational inertia, provided you turn off flight assist mode. Without flight assist, you can fly with close to full Newtonian movement, with some exceptions that were made to keep combat fun. (For example, there is a speed limit cap, to prevent dogfights from degrading into high speed flybys.) This means that with flight assist off, any movement you make, you must make a counter-movement for to stop. This includes all 6 degrees of movement, from translational to rotational. Often, players will disable flight-assist to get into an advantageous position when maneuvering, then re-enable it so they can aim more easily. There are a few, VERY good players that can fight with flight-assist off completely, and it's a sight to behold:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwVYc_iPAvg

In any case, E:D is looking very promising, despite getting a lot less attention than Star Citizen, and even No Man's Sky. Of all the upcoming space sims, this is the one I'm looking forward to most.

It's a space dogfighting game, so there is atmosphere in space, or at least it controls like it is. The human spaceships are supposed to look something like WW2 era fighter planes, since that's what this game is about, WW2 dogfighting in space.

You can even see what could be atmospheric maneuvering controls on one of the ships at the 4 minute mark. Wings or rudders or something wiggling about.

As for realism, there's much worse lapses here than just "omg spaceships with wings!". You could put wings on a spaceship for practical purposes, to make a spaceplane like the space shuttle. Or for decoration. But then you get things like the really fast military fighters have a top speed much lower than C, they can turn and kill their old inertia as if pushing against air, all the fighting is done at visual ranges under accelerations slow enough for a human to react to (and survive physically), lasers fire discrete, visible, tracer like lines rather than an invisible ray traveling at the speed of light... I'm sure there's more.

Nothin' beats camping out in an aircraft graveyard with fireworks, BBQ, LSD, titties, beer, ginger snaps, marijuana and a basting sound system blasting dogfight and take-off and landing sounds!

3 more comments have been lost in the ether at this killed duplicate.

no, everything you're seeing is from p-51 mustangs dogfighting zero's and then doing strafing runs against various targets from Tokyo to the coast on their way back from protecting the b-29's bombing runs.

Oh yes, 10 years ago the F-22 was the coolest thing EVER. Today we know more about it's limitations and the limelight has shifted away. It is sad there will be no more made, and frankly the pentagon has been pretty anti-fighter since the 60's so I expected the program would be shut down at some point. Then again when was the last time a US military aircraft was in a dogfight?

Mind also this amazing aircraft was a child of the 80's. With all the technical advances we've had since then, imagine what is on the drawing board today!