I've been pretty clear that I think it is important to understand the perspective of the police in these situations.

One could make an argument about how they are justified about having guns drawn, since they are replying to a call concerning someone walking around with a gun, and maybe the truck could be mistaken for a gun.

But, at best, that leaves the cop that shot him with a real weak ass argument: "I mistook something he was holding for a gun. I didn't get close enough to see if it was a gun, despite the standoff being very calm. I also didn't maneuver to a position that gave me a proper shooting lane on the suspect. I then accidently discharged my weapon, and hit an innocent party, who was lying on the ground in an non threatening and submissive manner." Sorry, but if that is the best argument you have, you're pretty much fucked.

I disagree that it is victim-blaming.

He is honking his horn and yelling and neither speeding up nor slowing down in the face of a car coming for him.

Drive defensively. So every time they run that PSA, that is victim blaming?

She was totally in the wrong. You saw I said that right?

And he didn't drive defensively.

As a car driver (encased in a metal box), I don't argue with someone who is coming right for me. I try to get the heck out of the way (and curse at them the entire way).

Now, maybe I am missing something -- you can correct me if I am wrong about my observations. I"m not a motorcycle driver. Maybe he couldn't have slowed down, sped up, or done some other maneuver. Looked to me like he could have.

Please do correct me if my observations are incorrect.

(And might I inquire as to why in particular it is odd to see me "victim blame"? Not that I think I am?)

Pit maneuver, please.
They were clearly endangering the public, and resisting arrest. Any injury they get from being rammed off their bikes, including death, is not compensable, and is their own fault.
What happens if you use a spike strip on a bike, I wonder.

What fucking reckless douchebags. Every single one of them should have their bike(s), and license taken, and then should be run into by their own bike at the maximum speed they ran from the cops, and then be arrested (if they survive).
They didn't think twice about running red lights at full speed while not even looking forwards sometimes. It's amazing they didn't kill someone in a crosswalk.
If you want to ride dirty, don't expect a whit of sympathy when you get rammed off your bike and end up paralyzed.
I was really glad to see at least one of them take himself out. I hope his bike is totaled, and his legs as well. I only wish it had happened 20 more times. Maybe he'll turn all his buddies in so he doesn't also get reamed by the DA.

From a reddit (fwtw) on the topic :

"I'm very curious as to how you got this video, i was under the impression it never left the airfield.
This happened in April 2014, this past year. The weather is absolute crap here, especially for soaring. Well... we get good weather sometimes. Anyway, it's not uncommon for those TG-16A's to go up with a 25 knot gust... But i digress.
The cadets were pushing in because winds were out of limits and the weather was getting worse... and BAM! Microburst.
This microburst hit right next to the airfield. The tower spotted it early, gave a verbal warning "look out..." and cadets are trained to do the following: grab a wing (glider) and turn broadside into the wind and put the spoilers out. The tows were not so easy... nor lucky. Their takeoff speed is about 50 knots, and none of them were powered up when they lifted off the ground, to give you an idea of how bad the wind was. Their only maneuver is to face into the wind and pray they dont actually take off. The tows that took off left for COS airport... it took another 30 minutes of holding gliders before the tower let the cadets start moving the gliders.
As for taking off... 55 kt gusts are the highest the Academy has had in a long time. Considering there were a half-dozen other aircraft within 100 ft of the tows, along with people (i.e. cadets around/in the gliders) if he was moving too far from his position in the queue, the safest action is to get some altitude and try and leave the microburst. Or at the very least put some altitude and distance in between himself and the cadets and aircraft. You saw how slow the tows in the air were moving relative to the ground... those were HARSH winds.
At about 0:20, you can see a cadet hanging onto the wing of a glider on the bottom of a screen. This wind was scary. I don't know if anyone was up at the time, but full tempo ops can be up to 5 tows and 8 gliders... on a standard afternoon training day 3 tows and 4 or 5 gliders is normal. It looks like they were already pushing the gliders to the hangar..."

Dropping caltrops is crazy. Doesn't look like it slowed the police car down any, though...

About the smoke I agree that it was probably just the engine dying in some way but it could have been some sort of modification to the exhaust system that would introduce oil or water into it in order to have it create the cloud. I mean, they did have caltrops on hand...

A big part of why this went on for so long though was that the cops clearly don't have training like they do in North America to deal with this kind of thing. A big empty country road would make this person fodder for any of the cars they have here and cops would immediately run a PIT maneuver and end the chase instantly.

Bee-autiful maneuvering. *quality determination

I have not agreed that my position is wrong on the performance and capability designs of the F-35 and modern air combat. Please read the rest of my post above.... I'm still saying that dogfights have ended with WW1. I've never said we don't need ANY dog fighting capabilities. I'm saying that it's never the primary design idea of a modern fighter jet. You still have a cannon for back up. Just like soldiers have a side arm and a knife. Just in case you do get caught with your pants down or the main weapon fails at a critical moment.

I have agreed on the waste of money aspect of course. I'll also agree that if test goals are being downsized to accommodate flaws, then that's just terrible. If it's not able to perform to it's design then it's useless.

The F-4 != F-35. I can see why people draw parallels. But that only works if you ignore that absolutely everything on the planes is different, the adversaries are different, and stealth is requirement for survivability. You don't use stealth planes in the way you use an non stealth plane. Have you ever heard of a sniper wearing a ghillie suit run across the open battlefield with a sword or pistol? There were so many tactical mistakes in Vietnam as well. The conditions in which that article talks about are also different. Those planes were flying low and slow for a bombing run. Because they didn't have laser, gps guided bombs, infrared fire and forget air to ground missiles or cruise missiles back in those days. You don't get fog at 40,000 feet. They had to fly that low to get a visual identification of their bombing target. That does not happen anymore either. You scream past at mach 1 above the clouds and the bomb hits where it was programmed to hit. Also the phantoms missiles were unrelaiable. That hasn't been the case since the 80s. And their training was poor. None of that is true these days, and has not been true since the 80s either. That's why every single fighter plane apart from the F-16 (which is made mostly as an export product anyway) has been created to fight at long range primarily. The F-15 which is the main air superiority fighter for the US, is heavy and has a worse maneuverability than any Russian plane. But it's still the most feared plane, with no loses in combat. The article you linked even says that. So it's basically contradicting itself. At the start it says, F-4's lost because they couldn't maneuver, and ends with therefore the US made the F-15 which has worse maneuverability than the Russian planes lol.



Edit: Cracked.com doesn't count as a reputable source for anything, including basic sentences, spelling and punctuation.

Edit2: Here is an article from an actual F-35 pilot that says the F-35 dog fights better than a F-16 since they keep tuning the fly-by-wire parameters. http://theaviationist.com/2016/03/01/heres-what-ive-learned-so-far-dogfighting-in-the-f-35-a-jsf-pilot-first-hand-account/

So even if it came to a dogfighting encounter, the F-35 is still the best plane in the US arsenal for dogfighting.

In all your over defense of this overpriced Swiss Army plane, I have yet to see you answer 1)why we would need it considering many of our planes out perform all other nations planes already (contrary to your assertion that "every Russian fighter can out maneuver the F-16", I found that's only partly true against older, non upgraded F-16s ) and 2) how you get around the 'we won't use it much because it's far too expensive to put in danger' argument.
It can't be the best for air superiority if we are too afraid to use them because they cost too much, or if we only have a few, because they cost too much.
What I read (I'm not a pilot) is that air combat is about the kill-loss ratio, where today we expect the losses to be 0.
Again, stealth is NOT 100%, and every method used has eventually been 'cracked'. If it worked every time, I would agree with you. Since it only works until the enemy figures out how, it's not worth $1.3 trillion for ANOTHER stealth fighter, we've already got them.
This plane isn't bullet or missile proof, and will be just as visible and slow when doing real close air support...if it can. I've seen footage of warthogs landing that looked like a whiffle ball they were so full of holes. They're pretty tough.
In 10 years time, I have the feeling that international air superiority will not be our biggest concern. It's good to be prepared, but terrible to bankrupt yourself to meet a challenge that's already met, or a challenge that does not yet, and may never exist. Upgrading our current aircraft would be a MUCH better way to spend that money, and we would get WAY more out of each dollar.
The F-35 may not be in service for 10 years, and may already be obsolete by then (at least it's special systems that make it 'better' than the aircraft we have today). It really seems more like a star wars project, designed to force our 'enemies' to spend themselves into oblivion, but forcing us to the brink in the effort.
Not the "close air support" that the A-10 provides. If this is meant to replace them too, and I think it is, it will have to do what they do, low and slow.

I don't disagree that advanced systems CAN make more difference than slight performance specs, that's no reason to ignore performance, or go backwards. If it's the systems that make the plane perform better, the smart thing would be to put them on the better air frame and have a better plane all around for much cheaper. Simple.

To me, if we spent $1.3 trillion developing and tens of Billions building a fleet of these planes, it's more likely we'll eventually invent a reason to have to use them. Even if we don't, while nice we aren't killing for nothing, we will have wasted that money for nothing, and done it at a time when our debt and poorly used federal funds have the country literally falling apart... that seems more than dumb, it seems criminally insane and treasonous.

The F-35 can do everything better than any other plane. It's weapons are better, it's senors are better, and it's communication and situational awareness is much better. Thanks to the stealth, it has better survivability.

The only area it has some disadvantages in performance are the acceleration and maneuverability. Which is a small disadvantage, it still accelerates incredibly fast, just slower than a lighter plane, which is just physics. But it's not a slouch by any means. Plus the maneuverability is still being worked on, it's all fly by wire and they can do some really magic things with those systems once it's all tuned. They haven't started pushing it to the limits yet from what I've heard. (and honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if this whole "our plane sucks" thing was another tactic of spreading misinformation).

Here's the other thing. The F-16 can out maneuver and out accelerate the F-35. But every Russian fighter can out accelerate and out maneuver the F-16, anyway. Yet the F-16 always comes out on top. Why is that? Superior sensors, weapons, comms and tactics.

The F-35 is the best plane to achieve air superiority, because not many pilots have a death wish. Air combat is about survival, not about kills. Even in the Gulf war, the Iraqi's didn't want to fly against the F-15s because they knew they'd get just get shot down. They never even took off. So imagine how they would feel against a plane that can't be detected, let alone locked onto. A plane that can lock onto you and fire without you knowing. Not a good feeling knowing that at any moment you could explode without warning.

The A-10 is bullet proof, but not missile proof. It's a sitting duck against shoulder mounted IGLA's. Only the cockpit is bullet proof BTW which is great for the pilot, but not so great for the rest of the plane

I agree that the F-35 for the current war is overkill, but electronics and technology keeps getting cheaper day by day, and in 10 years time, even the current enemies will start buying more sophisticated systems. It's better to be prepared. As being reactionary like in WW2 and Vietnam was quite costly to the lives of allied forces. The F-35 will probably be in service for another 30 years, so it needs to try to meet as many requirements as it can for that time period, until the next plane comes out shooting lasers instead of missiles.

Also close air support these days is already done mostly by soft skin planes like the F-16. So not much difference there. Apart from the expense I guess. It's not low and slow either. You have a plane fly at such speed and high altitude the people on the ground never even know about it.


If you feel like it I'll give you a game of DCS World some time. It's a free flight sim (also used to train US national guard and other nations too). It really demonstrates the value of good sensors and weapons over flight performance

Now when it comes to being a waste of money, only time will tell. I guess either way it's win win though, because if there is no conflict that needs this plane it's only a good thing. And if there is a conflict we have the plane ready. But for the time being it really does seem like it's a waste of money. A lot of money, especially in a time of debt.

Acceleration is a big factor if you're doing any evasive maneuvering, because turning scrubs speed and you have to gain it back, preferably fast. It's not everything, but it matters.

Don't get me wrong, I do admit there are interesting, possibly unique, even useful features of the F-35, I just don't see any need for it, and certainly not at the price. When was the last time an American was shot down in a jet fighter?

My main issue with this plane is that it's sold as a replacement to nearly ALL other planes, which it had to be because of it's price tag. It doesn't do most of it's 'jobs' as well as the planes it replaces, is incredibly more expensive than they are, and they weren't in need of replacement in the first place, so why did we have this $1.3 trillion poorly performing jobs program for the aerospace industry during an economic crisis? We had much better things to spend that money on, and killing this plane project would not make us a whit less safe or ready.

Nice, I like that idea, a swarm of jammer drones to eliminate all electronic advantages. I'll put your name in the hat for the evil super genius prize this year.

Agreed, the 1 on 1 fighting scenario is not the plan anymore. That doesn't mean it never happens though, or won't ever happen in the future, and as Americans we want/expect to win every single time.

The F-35 can fly both faster, and slower than the F-16, and longer at high angles of attack that would stall most planes. It although can't out accelerate the F-16 though since F-35 is heavier. But having the best acceleration isn't really a factor in modern air combat, where missiles are being thrown at each other from any between 20-100+km's range. As long as you can accelerate good enough, which being a fighter plane it can.

The F-35's afterburner-less supersonic speed is more important in a BVR(beyond visual range) engagement, since that's what allows you to put more distance between you and an enemy missile. The idea being that you fly perpendicular to a missile making it cover more ground and it runs out of fuel and speed so it falls out of the sky before it can reach you. Of course to lock onto a stealth plane you'd need to be quite close in the first place, by which time it would have shot you down, at least that's the theory.

If it comes to a close range scenario, say enemy AWACS manages to detect the F-35s, and direct a bunch of enemy fighters through a set of mountains to sneak up on the F-35s. And a visual range or even dog fight ensues. Then the F-35 would use a short range missile that can turn 90+ degrees and shoot behind itself . Which no other plane can do since all of the sensors are forward facing on all other planes.

But you're of course right, there is always eventually going to be a way of countering the stealth advantage, it's an arms race after all. Most likely it will be countered by some kind of cheap jamming drone swarming, which would make the F-35s sensors useless, and missiles too few, forcing the engagements to happen at shorter ranges.


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What I mean by dog fighting is a one on one engagement where each plane is trying to furiously out maneuver the other. That is a rare occurrence. There is a WW2 era video that explains the tactics used that make the one on one style dog fighting obsolete. https://youtu.be/C_iW1T3yg80?t=530

The planes have a system where as soon as one plane is engage by an enemy, then your wingman, or a spare clean up squadron comes and mops it up, since the enemy makes it self an easy target when engaging a friendly.

The F-35 can't maneuver as well as an F-16. But F-16 can't maneuver as well as P-51 from World War 2.

There hasn't been a dog fight since the first world war. Even in WW2 it was about strategy, positioning and team work. It had very little to do with plane performance, expect for when there was a huge gap like the invention of the jet plane.

Air combat for the last 60 years has been about situational awareness first and foremost. And the F-35 has this nailed.

It's like saying that modern soldiers don't have any sword fighting skills. It's completely irrelevant. You wouldn't use a sword against a camouflaged sniper. The F-35 is a camouflaged sniper, hiding in the trees. Who would silly enough to run through an open field with a sword? Or even a pistol? The sniper will have killed you before you even know you are being targeted.


Now the people making the F-35 are probably incompetent in delivering a plane on time and on budget(either that or they are milking it). But the plane once finished, will be a winner.


The other thing is, the F-35's will always be part of a force of other planes in a large scale conflict. If for some reason it does come down to dog fighting - e.g. if there are just tons of cheaper planes going against it (with suicidal pilots) that they simply cannot carry enough missiles, then the rest of the enemies would be mopped up by F-15, F-16s , F/A-18s etc.

@Payback -- that helps with the "how", thanks.

A big part of my confusion was/is from how it started the hop *before* it got close to the object. Without driver input that would require sensors aiming ahead (some mix of cameras, sonar, laser range, etc.) that I can see being a part of a car built around such a system from the ground up, but would go beyond the scope of a drop-in "suspension replacement".

But I can see a reactive suspension system working like that -- it has a computer control unit that normally just responds to sensors in the suspension (reactive rather than predictive), but has a button that can manually initiate that maneuver just like you described. In that way I guess it isn't that much different from a Tesla Model S "insane mode"; driver initiates it and the computer (and car) does the rest.

Interesting.

Love how he maneuvered around to sniff his bum and immediately knew who he was at that moment.

Hopefully I execute this maneuver correctly so you can see my new favorite band ... The Rock Cats *embed=[]