By DAN WARD
When the story broke about the Joint Strike Fighter’s shortcomings as a dogfighter, the reaction among JSF advocates was swift and predictable. Most objected that the F-35’s poor performance is perfectly acceptable and even expected because that jet was never supposed to do air-to-air combat anyway. That claim does not hold up well to scrutiny and rather begs the question of why the Air Force staged the mock air battle between an F-35 and an F-16 in the first place. Probably because, as the Chief of Staff of the Air Force General Mark Welsh explained in December of 2013, “You have to have the F-35 to augment the F-22 to do the air superiority fight.” In other words, the USAF needs the F-35 to be a dogfighter.
Other defenders explained that the scenario in question was just one test and the leaked report was taken out of context by people who don’t really understand these things, so everyone should hold off on rushing to judgment about the plane’s worth. Since the JSF development contract was signed in 1996 and we’re just now putting it through Basic Fighter Maneuver tests (with full-rate production not planned until 2020), I’d say nobody is rushing to anything on that particular aircraft. But speaking as someone with experience and expertise in testing military gear, I can confirm that it is possible for a single test to provide meaningful, definitive performance data. I suspect the F-35 supporters would have agreed with that perspective if it had won the dogfight.
https://breakingdefense.com/2015/07/what-the-f-35-v-f-16-dogfight-really-means-think-pilots/
