Lockheed Martin´s properties in congress have served their owner extremely well in what surely must be the largest scam in military history ever.
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Lockheed Martin's F-35 humbled by veteran F-16 jet in mock dogfight2nd Jul 2015, 3:08 pm by Alessandro Bruno
An F-35 test pilot was dismissive of the F-35’s maneuverability, noting in a five page report cited by the website ‘War is Boring’ that it “can’t turn or climb fast enough to hit an enemy plane during a dogfight An F-35 test pilot was dismissive of the F-35’s maneuverability, noting in a five page report cited by the website ‘War is Boring’ that it “can’t turn or climb fast enough to hit an enemy plane during a dogfight
Shares of Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT) were trading at about US$186, well below its 52-week high of US$207.06 reached last February after revelations that its costly F-35 Joint Strike Fighter next generation jet fighter lost to a 1970’s designed F-16 in a dogfight.
An F-35 test pilot was dismissive of the F-35’s maneuverability, noting in a five page report cited by the website ‘War is Boring’ that it “can’t turn or climb fast enough to hit an enemy plane during a dogfight or to dodge the enemy’s own gunfire” after a mock air battles staged by the US Air Force last January.
This is but the latest of many blows after years of delays and ballooning development costs to the F-35 fighter, the most expensive weapons program in the world
with 400 billion invested and counting.
The pilot’s scathing review suggests it could also be one of the most catastrophic. The future aircraft is to be used by the USAF the US Navy, Marines and a dozen other client countries (potentially Canada, UK, Netherlands, Italy, Australia, Japan and Israel among others), but according to the test pilot, the F-35 was unable to dominate its almost 30 years old opponent, constantly lacking the “energy "to make the necessary maneuvers.
The F-35 in question, a single-seat F-35A, was pitted against an F-16D Block 40 two-seater or a version dating back to the mid 80’s.
The F-35 flew without armament or fuel tanks at Unlike the F-16, loaded with two tanks, which cause aerodynamic handicaps. Yet, the F-16 performed much better.Basically, the F-35 has shown disturbing aerodynamic weaknesses. It proved too slow and was unable to maneuver quickly enough to avoid its opponent’s fire. Worse, according to the pilot's helmet 360 degree view of the camera does not see everything that is happening around you. "The helmet was too big in relation to the space available to see behind the aircraft," which is a disadvantage when the aircraft is in a dogfight situation.
The pilot also said that the F-35 is "substantially worse" than the old F-15 – also from the 70’s. In other words, the pilot feels that the F-35 is a threat rather than an advantage to the US military.Lockheed Martin issued a statement on July 1 that "the article does not tell the whole story," stressing that the F-35 in question was "not equipped with many functions integrated into the current production 5th generation F-35 aircraft," which will cost US$ 159 million apiece
The US Air Force was diplomatic, saying that in simulated tests the F-35 proved better than the F-16 but it did not contradict the pilot, whose scathing thumbs-down review was cited by ‘War is Boring’.
Regardless of the public relations and damage control statements, implying that the F-35 was not designed for a ‘dog-fight’, the weakness is bound to raise many concerns by government and military officials in the United States and in all the countries that have ordered it.
Lockheed Martin is considering bulk sales of the aircraft to bring down the price and the Pentagon has defended the aircraft’s performance, both urging a ramp up of production of the plane. But, many problems aside from disappointed test pilots remain including engine performance, software and reliability to mention a few.
Last quarter, Lockheed Martin, the world’s biggest military contractor by sales, performed better than expected in the first quarter posting a net profit of US$878 million, down 6% year on year on revenues of US$10.11 billion, against the US$10.65 billion analyst consensus and 5 percent lower than a year ago.
http://www.proactiveinvestors.com/companies/news/62232/lockheed-martins-f-35-humbled-by-veteran-f-16-jet-in-mock-dogfight-62232.html