This author, along with several others, has been warning for a long time that the F-35 “Joint Strike Fighter” is decidedly inferior even to legacy aircraft, let alone to the latest Russian and Chinese jets and air defense systems.

This conclusion has been drawn from several publicly-known facts, including the F-35’s limited stealthiness, poor weapons payload, limited range and endurance, poor situational awareness, and lack of maneuverability (i.e. sluggishness).

But until this year, any debate about the F-35’s performance and capabilities was purely academic. It could have been conducted only based on paper data and the laws of physics.

That debate is no longer academic.

It has now been established, through realistic testing, that the F-35 is indeed so sluggish, so unmaneuverable, and offers such poor situational awareness to its pilot, that it’s hopelessly outmatched in a dogfight (i.e. close range combat) – even by the legacy aircraft it’s intended…