What did critics say about the F-15 and F-16?

John Boyd, defense analysts Tom Christie and Pierre Sprey, and test pilot Col. Everest Riccioni and aeronautical engineer Harry Hillaker formed the core of the self-dubbed "Fighter Mafia" which worked behind the scenes in the late 1960s to pursue a lightweight fighter as an alternative to the F-15. The group strongly believed that an ideal fighter should not include any of the sophisticated radar and missile systems or rudimentary ground-attack capability that found their way into the F-15.

In retrospect, the group's greatest contribution was the promotion of E-M as a basis for evaluating and designing aircraft for air combat maneuvering. At a time when the US military was seemingly obsessed with technological solutions, the Fighter Mafia acted as the opposite extreme from which a more balanced approach to fighter design would emerge. 

However, this can be seen as ultimately a defeat of the Fighter Mafia and its ideals. While this balanced approach would result in the highly successful F-15, F-15E, F-16, F/A-18 and F/A-18E/F, it did so at the betrayal of the Fighter Mafia's campaign for the US military to adopt a single-role, low-tech fighter in large numbers.

The group's uncompromising disdain of and campaign against advanced weapons, radars, ECM, and multi-role designs, what they characterized as "gold-plating", would prove erroneous. For example, the Fighter Mafia argued that the ground attack mission should be handled by more appropriate, dedicated aircraft such as the A-10, which has had an outstanding record in that area and that the addition of more electronics to F-16 caused its weight to rise to the point where it lost its edge in dogfighting, the mission for which it had been designed. The vision of the group would have seen the US build thousands of dedicated short-ranged, low-tech, fighter-only aircraft to counter Soviet air power on a numerical superiority basis, a plan that was never endorsed by the USAF or the USN.

Instead, the success of US military aircraft has shown that the same technology would protect aircraft from missiles in an increasingly sensor-saturated battlefield, and would enable the multi-mission capabilities of modern aircraft. And while the US aircraft has engaged in few air-to-air encounters since Vietnam, the trend continues to show that missiles and in particular increasingly mature long-range missiles are the primary weapon of choice in modern combat, a trend that started as far back as the Vietnam War but continues to be downplayed by the Fighter Mafia.

Although Sprey often portrays himself as a "principal designer" of the F-16, the actual plane that entered service included the long-range missiles, sensors and multi-role capability that he continues to criticize today.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighter_Mafia

Was the F/18 E/F Super Hornet a good idea?

Sometimes it's interesting to read opinions from the past so we can see how accurate they were:

In a publication called “Inside Washington,” the Navy’s director of operational testing is quoted as saying that the Super Hornet was superior to its earlier models “…in every category but three: acceleration, maximum speed and sustained turning performance.”

This pronouncement boggled our minds because these are the very performance capabilities that determine a tactical airplane’s survival. Then, as if to justify this “hand grenade,” the officer is quoted as stating that the Navy has sacrificed speed in the Super Hornet for other beneficial capabilities, and he asserts, “brute speed is no longer the discriminator it once was when the benchmark was the Soviet threat.”

 It is clear that this Naval officer doesn’t have a clue about aerial combat and the importance of total energy in the complex equation of energy maneuverability. Nor does he seem to understand that Third World countries all around the globe are purchasing the very latest operational Russian-built fighters that are also licensed for production in China. The Russian aerial threat still exists; what has changed is that the pilots aren’t Russians.

Contrary to what we’re officially told, a tanker variety of the Hornet is simply not the answer. In an attempt to make it supersonic, the F-18E has been given a low aspect ratio and a razor blade of a wing. This hurts subsonic drag and carrier takeoff payload when compared with the KA-6 tanker, which is an aerodynamically efficient solution.

Equally silly is the proposal for an EW version of the F-18E. The same aerodynamic reasons apply for this airplane, plus it has an external stores dilemma. To get sufficient range to support a deep-interdiction mission, the EF-18E would have to use up precious external store stations with fuel tanks rather than ECM pods as carried on the EA-6B. Perhaps the Navy should consider putting the EA-6B back into upgraded and modernized production and build some of them as tankers?

In combat-maneuvering flight, the aircraft had severe “wing-drop” problems that defied resolution, despite the use of every aerodynamic analytical tool available. Eventually, one test pilot came up with a “leaky-fold-joint” fix that opened chordwise air slots to aspirate the wing’s upper surface flow and thereby prevent the sharp stalling of one wing before the other. They stalled more or less together, but much easier and more severely than before. This new fix is what the aerodynamicists call a “band aid.” It causes aircraft buffeting, which is generally a source of wing drag. But a “fix” that combined “acceptable” wing drop with “acceptable” buffeting had been achieved. One test pilot commented dryly, “I’d like the buffeting levels to be a little lower so I could read the heads-up display!”

Owing to its high drag and weight (and probably other factors), the F/A-18E is significantly poorer in acceleration than the F/A-18A. Also, its combat ceiling is substantially lower, and its transonic drag rise is very high. We have stayed in touch with some pilots at the Navy’s test center and have gathered some mind boggling anecdotal information. Here are some examples:

An F/A-18A was used to “chase” an F-14D test flight. The F-14D was carrying four 2,000-pound bombs, two 280-gallon drop tanks, two Phoenix missiles and two Sidewinder air-to-air missiles. The chase airplane was in a relatively “clean” configuration with only a centerline fuel tank. At the end of each test flight, the chase airplane was several miles behind the test airplane when the chase airplane reached “bingo” fuel and had to return to base.

An F/A-18E Super Hornet is tested using the same chase airplane, an earlier model Hornet, in the same configuration. The chase airplane does not need full thrust to stay with the test airplane.

An F/A-18E/F in maximum afterburner thrust cannot exceed Mach 1.0 in level flight below 10,000 feet even when it is in the clean configuration (no external stores). At 10,000 feet, the F-14D can exceed Mach 1.6.

A quote from a Hornet pilot is devastatingly frank: “The aircraft is slower than most fighters fielded since the early 1960s.”

The most devastating comment came from a Hornet pilot who flew numerous side-by-side comparison flights with F/A-18E/F Super Hornets and says: “We outran them, we out-flew them and we ran them out of gas. I was embarrassed for them.”

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/595147/posts