One thing that is interesting to me is the politics and/or orders given for test pilots and current military pilots to squawk only what they are told. That video above with Billie Flynn. Do you realize that he worked for the Eurofighter before Lockheed Martin as their chief test pilot, and had NOTHING but bad things to say about the F35 prior to working for LM? I'll link some of the videos and articles he's quoted in while working with the Eurofighter team, and how much he trashed the JSF program in favor of the plane he was currently working with (Typhoon at that time). Now, in that video, since his paycheck has LM at the top instead of the Eurofighter consortium, what, surprise, all of a sudden the F35 is the greatest thing since bread was sliced? Hilarious.
Makes me wonder about the infamous Dolby and all of his praise, Dolby this Dobly that, Dolby Dolby Dolby. What tune would Dolby sing if Norway had bought the Eurofighter instead of the F35?
In Billie Flynn's case - a friend flew with him as a newly promoted Captain when Flynn was CO of the old 441 CF18 squadron here - he's worked for many aerospace companies in his post RCAF career. He's flown a lot of fighters too, almost as many as my friend has flown as CO of our test/eval squadron, Tornado, F16, Typhoon, F18 and of course the F35. Yet, it seems he jumps ship to whomever is writing the checks. When he worked for the Eurofighter team, he went on at great length how it would dominate every other fighter yet created or on the drawing board. Then when he was hired by Lockheed Martin, he said the following, and was called out by other test pilots he had worked with while at Eurofighter -
Bill Flynn, Lockheed test pilot responsible for flight envelope expansion activities for the F-35 claimed that all three variants of the Joint Strike Fighter will have better kinematic performance than any fourth-generation fighter plane with combat payload, including the Eurofighter Typhoon (that during last year’s Red Flag Alaska achieved several simulated kills against the F-22 Raptor) and the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet.
“In terms of instantaneous and sustained turn rates and just about every other performance metric, the F-35 variants match or considerably exceed the capabilities of every fourth-generation fighter,” Flyinn said.
According to the Lockheed pilot, (besides its stealthiness) the F-35 features better transonic acceleration and high AOA (angle-of-attack) flight performance than an armed Typhoon or Super Hornet.
Which was complete bunk, and proven to be so by other test pilots.
https://theaviationist.com/2013/02/11/typhoon-aerial-combat/#.UmKzzhZLLHghttps://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/in-focus-lockheed-claims-f-35-kinematics-better-than-or-equal-to-typhoon-or-super-hornet-382078/Typhoon with a loadout that the F35 will never match, and is very unlikely to be able to perform in a similar manner with a loadout even close to this - 2 IR AAM, 4 MRM AAM, 2 fuel tanks, 2 Paveway bombs, 6 ATG Brimstone...load the F35 up with all of that and let's see it run some of these maneuvers. I'm not saying the F35 due to fusion/stealth won't be more capable on the battlefield, but Flynn is obviously full of crap based on his claims regarding the F35s straight performance capabilities vs the Eurofighter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gl70X64n3xg
