USA: the latest fighter F-35 is unsuitable for air fight

Military and air forces of the USA recognized that the new strike fighter of the fifth generation of Lockheed Martin F-35 is not unsuitable for successful conducting air fight even with out-of-date planes. About it the expert in the field of military subject David Eks in the article for the The Daily Beast edition writes.

On Tuesday, September 15, at conference in Maryland the lack of maneuverability of the plane was confirmed by the head of Fighting aviation command of the U.S. Air Force Herbert Karlayl. "The fighter was developed not for this purpose (air fight)", – the American military man assured.

In turn, the speaker of command, colonel Edward Sholtis, believes that the plane has the qualities, capable to compensate its sluggishness and to give priority before opponents in air fight – he considers as those the improved avionics and the modernized systems of a radar.

Meanwhile the author of article notes that present statements that F-35 initially did not intend for air fight, contradict that the American military spoke earlier. So, in 2008 the general of the Air Force Charles Davies declared that F-35 in air fights it will be four times more effective than older units of tactical fleet. The Lockheed Martin company developer, in turn, compared this plane to a race horse for unprecedented engine capacity for the fighter.

Due to more than optimistical expectations of the U.S. Air Force planned to replace about 90 % of tactical aviation fleet of the country, including F/A-18 and F-16, with Lockheed Martin F-35. The case of marines of the USA planned to receive the first squadron of JSF ready to fight by July. In total American Ministry of Defence was going to buy 2400 such fighters. However, as David Eks notes, already to the middle of this year it became obvious that heavy F-35 cannot be developed and be accelerated quickly enough to surpass even those fighters which now are on arms, without speaking already and about maneuverable models of the near future.