Doesn’t sound like it would be cutting edge for the last five decades.
So what if a F16 can out dog fight it. A WWI biplane can out dogfight an F16, but I don't want to go back to biplanes. (On a side note, our current targeting systems would have a really hard time locking on a WWI biplane, because those planes had very little metal- mostly wood and cloth.) Almost every thing is a compromise.
Additionally, I think we need to focus on drones. They are the future. The planes can take more G forces than the pilots. Manned aircraft, is sort of like the ships that had steam engines and sails. I was talking to a Marine General about ten years ago and his opinion was that the F-35 is the last manned aircraft. It takes too long to train a pilot, too much resources and no one likes to lose people.
The hard part is to reduce the lag time between the controller and the drone, due to signal distance. But I think they'll program the drones to act on their own, just like they are trying to do with cars. Also think of the weight you can save by not having systems for the pilot (hand controls, oxygen systems, evacuation seats, etc...).
There is an attempt to make one airframe conform to WAY too many different (and contradictory) assigned duties, in a wrong-headed attempt to be “economical” (definitely a very misplaced thriftiness), and “universal”, serving highly disparate functions.
Literally HUNDREDS of different conformations for airplanes had been tried before and during the Second World War, but only a few of them became outstanding, and that was because each of them performed only a few well-defined functions, and were not fitted to some other role for which they were woefully inadequate.
You want close-order support of ground troops? Look no further than the truly amazing record of the A-10 Warthog, proven over and over to be one of the best strafing and ground support weapons systems ever designed, able to operate from very primitive forward airstrips, with remarkable abilities to return the pilot to base even in the presence of extreme damage to the airframe, capability to take out even relatively heavy armor with its nose cannon (the plane is virtually a flying cannon), and with its capability to carry air-to-surface missiles, it can sneak in at virtually treetop level, and come up on a target long before the defenses can be cranked down to even take aim. Literally, it can rain down hell on the enemy.
You want vertical take-off and landing? Helicopters have evolved a long way in the past 75 years or so, and even a Vietnam-era UH-1 Huey gunship was able to insert, take deadly aim, and clear or halt an assault by enemy infantry.
You want dogfight capability? The F-22, from what little I know of it, was superior in many ways to the F-35, but in current air war scenarios, this is of limited value, with air-to-air missiles using heat-seeking capabilities being of much greater utility than mounted cannon.
Much of what is claimed for the F-35 has been done already, and done better, by equipment that has been declared “obsolete”.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3323972/posts
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Before founding the National Security Network, Rand Beers served as the National Security Adviser to the Kerry-Edwards 2004 campaign
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It's a liberal think tank. Reference some of the favorite liberal code words (my underlining) for weakening defense. These guys are who is in charge right now.