A question for the aviation experts...
I've been playing catch-up on my reading and I keep running into conflicting, confusing and what I believe is misleading information.
Exhibit #1 is this post by Winslow Wheeler from Huffinton Post back in 2009.
If the latest iteration of "beyond visual range" turns out to be yet another chimera, the F-35 will have to operate as a close-in dogfighter, but in that regime it is a disaster. If one accepts every aerodynamic promise Lockheed currently makes for it, the F-35 will be overweight and underpowered. At 49,500 pounds in air-to-air take-off weight with an engine rated at 42,000 pounds of thrust, it will be a significant step backward in thrust-to-weight and acceleration for a new fighter. In fact, at that weight and with just 460 square feet of wing area for the Air Force and Marine Corps versions, the F-35's small wings will be loaded with 108 pounds for every square foot, one third worse than the F-16A. (Wings that are large relative to weight are crucial for maneuvering and surviving in combat.) The F-35 is, in fact, considerably less maneuverable than the appallingly vulnerable F-105 "Lead Sled," a fighter that proved helpless in dogfights against MiGs over North Vietnam. (A chilling note: most of the Air Force's fleet of F-105s was lost in four years of bombing; one hundred pilots were lost in just six months.)The question I have is this...
Nor is the F-35 a first class bomber for all that cost: in its stealthy mode it carries only a 4,000 pound payload, one third the 12,000 pounds carried by the "Lead Sled."
If bigger wings confer greater agility then why isn't the F-35C more agile than the F-35A.Yes its a simple question.
But this type of thing has gained traction and is repeated by many...its even a pronouncement that I've seen on a site where the authors claim to be aviation experts and when challenged on any of the claims that they make "insist on comparing resumes"...the comparison to the F-105 is also a much repeated phrase that I see popping up all over the internet.
So I'm asking the guys that might fly by this blog to give me the real deal...is it that cut and dry or am I being deceived?
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