Home Current Good News, the F-35 Is One Tough Dogfighter

Good News, the F-35 Is One Tough Dogfighter

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Good News, the F-35 Is One Tough DogfighterIn June 2015, War Is Boring summarized a leaked official test report detailing a mock dogfight between a U.S. Air Force F-35 stealth fighter and an F-16, one of the planes the new F-35 is supposed to replace.The dogfight did not go well for the F-35, which couldn’t accelerate or turn fast enough to keep up with the F-16. “The F-35 was at a distinct energy disadvantage,” the stealth fighter’s pilot — a former F-15 flier — wrote in his report.(This article by David Axe originally appeared at War is Boring in 2016.)But now a Norwegian test pilot has indirectly refuted the test pilot in a blog post on the Website of the Norwegian defense ministry. Norway is buying 52 F-35s are a cost of no less than $5 billion to replace the country’s current fleet of 1980s-vintage F-16s.