F-35 can't dog fight - Pentagon; F-35 lemon files

It's official. The F-35 is a fucked lemon, according to the Pentagon. Is this the final nail in it's very expensive coffin?

The Pentagon has declared it can't fight against any serious enemy. You can't get much more to the point than that. 

IT WAS supposed to be Australia’s next generation fighter, a weapon capable of destroying and outrunning any enemy. Six years on from a $1 trillion investment, it appears incapable of both. 

Plagued by glitches and behind schedule by half a decade, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter might have just received the final nail in its very expensive coffin. 

Michael Gilmore, the Pentagon’s director of operational test and evaluation, declared this week the most expensive defence program in our country’s history would struggle mightily in a “dogfight” — a term used to describe the aerial battle between aircraft — despite every assertion to the contrary from Washington and Canberra. 

“The F-35B Block 2B aircraft is not capable of unsupported combat against any serious threat,” Mr Gilmore said, according to Aviation Week. 

That declaration should come as a giant red flag for the Australian Government but no real surprise to critics who have long insisted the F-35 is a flop, a flying supercomputer that will be outdated before any Australian pilot ever takes the controls. Adelaide Advertiser