latest bad press. Curious to know what your opinions are. Or engineers or scientific dudes in that industry perhaps. It seems every new plane since the Cold War started has both come in late and over budget, and just reamed as total crap by many watchers early on. Some of those turned out to be great planes, even legends, some not.

I know the F-22 and F-35 have their issues, and are bloated piggys $ wise. But I wonder if the bad opinions are real. The latest article "pilot review" does close battle dog fighting w/ an F-16. Now that's a beautiful plane. So light and nimble, reminds me of early Nissan Z's. Fully committed to handling/performance, where the F-4 was like a big bus w/ everything, including the kitchen sink that was fast in a straight line, but no match Mig-21's close up. Is this F-35 vs. F-16 a worry? My worry is how many great planes from the f-16 to the A-10 Warthog this thing is supposed to replace. You know the saying when you try and make something at good at everything, it's good at nothing. Dog fighting is a thing of the past, they wanna blast stuff from 20miles out. Does it matter the F-35 can't dogfight or sheds energy way too fast, leaving it vulnerable. Would it ever be in that situation? At one point, they thought fighters didn't need cannon. Thats why they strapped on a 20mm? Gatling gun underneath the F-4 Phantom in the 60's when they realized it was necessary.


I'm curious in whatever opinions anyone has. Even F-15e pilots have been harsh and it says f-35 compares poorly to that older main AF fighter, thought to be the best in the world for the most part. Would we be better off cheaply producing F-16s, F-15's and A-10's in greater numbers than these 200m F-35's? Rather than phasing out those older legends and having nothing but 200m jets that may or may not do the job. Of course, China's new fighter looks almost identical to the 35. I'm a rambler/ranter, but soliciting opinions on the matter however large or small. I find it very difficult get a true reading on the situation, because there are a lot competing agendas and interests. To a non-military dude with an interest in history, it's really hard to pinpoint which extreme is the truth. Here's a summary of the article on F-35:




https://medium.com/war-is-boring/test-pilot-admits-the-f-35-can-t-dogfight-cdb9d11a875