Maggie's Farm

Was Mo A Suicide?



she reported that he doused himself in fuel oil and set himself ablaze, wrapped det cord around his neck and blew his head off before igniting his bomb vest.

Re: Test Pilot Admits the F-35 Can’t Dogfight

this report is grossly misleading. It sets up a gunnery duel between an F-16 and F-35 at necessarily close range.

so these things aren't considered:

1. force multipliers like AWACS coordination which would let the F-35 exploit its stealthy air frame and without using its own search radar.

2. gun fighting between fighters is nonexistent or rare at best. the overwhelming number of shoot-downs in the Iran-Iraq war were were by missiles, and every fighter vs fighter shoot-down in Gulf War I was by missiles, mostly AIM-7s and -9s. I might be wrong on this brief survey, but the point is that performance in a single aircraft gun duel are overrated. Iraqi transports and helos were downed by gunfire, so retaining the cannon makes sense for that, and for ground attack.

3. where guns must be used, the leader and his wingman will use equalizing tactics, e.g., the Thach Weave tactic used by pairs of F4Fs against A6M2s. The Weave negated the Zero's superior maneuverability and speed, so that Wildcat and Zero losses were consistently balanced. in the article, the planes were matched individually, there were no wingmen as you'd expect in a typical combat situation. Also note that it is unlikely that F-35s will engage non-export F-16s.

there are always trade-offs.

the article wasn't classified for a reason - it doesn't tell you much.
look at it this way, an AgCat could outperform the F-16 for specific tasks.