No dog, the F-35 is a silent, long range assassin hiding in the dark

In the 1960s, the RAAF operated the locally manufactured CAC Sabre. This derivative of the ­famous Korean War F-86 fighter turned out to be probably the best subsonic high-altitude fighter of its generation. The Hawker Hunter came close at lower levels, but the CAC Sabre, with its 50 per cent more thrust from its Rolls-Royce Avon engine, plus 30mm cannon and sidewinder missiles, reigned as a high-altitude dogfighter.

The climb time to 35,000 feet from take-off was just six minutes, with a best turn speed of M. 83 and a maximum of M. 94, whereupon transonic mach shock effects would limit manoeuvrability. With flying finesse, it could reach 53,000 feet.

In 1971, the Sabres were readied for handover as gifts to the Indonesian and Malaysian air forces.

My colleague Jim remained as the sole Sabre pilot and he was scheduled for a test flight after a flap change on a Friday morning.

Fridays, because of night flying on Thursdays, were generally non-flying ground-training and administration days, with an early stand down at 3pm.

Jim took off at 11.30am and headed well out to sea from the RAAF Williamtown fighter base near Newcastle and conducted a clean stall at 10,000 feet, as called for in the test flight schedule.

The second stall in the landing configuration resulted in a violent flick into a spin.

Full opposite rudder, stick full forward plus inspin aileron, did not help and passing 4000 feet and a windscreen full of green sea Jim banged out (ejected).

When he climbed into his tiny liferaft, he noticed a hissing noise. The conical rubber leak stoppers in the survival kit did not work as during the moulding process a flange had formed so Jim used Band-Aids and the manual inflation tube to keep his raft inflated. Fortunately, Jim was very athletic — he won the best sportsman trophy on our ­pilots course and used to nude model for art classes.

At 3pm, a corporal was closing the Sabre hangar doors when he ­realised a Sabre was missing. He rang his warrant officer in the sergeants’ mess, who hurried down and checked the technical log, which confirmed a Sabre had departed on a test flight.

He rang the duty officer, who checked with the control tower.

A shift change had occurred at midday but the flight log showed a departure at 11.30am.

The duty officer called out the search-and-rescue Iroquois ­helicopter crew, who had been enjoying a long spell in the officers’ mess bar.

They took off and homed in on Jim’s 243 MHz SARBE beacon and winched him up. Jim was on the point of exhaustion, having kept himself afloat by lung power using the manual inflation tube.

The F-35, which comes in for a lot of criticism, was not designed to dogfight at all. The old adage of why would you bring a knife to a gunfight in this case is changed to why bring a pistol against a sniper’s rifle.

Some 35 years ago, I saw how technology can prevail when in a Mirage fighter I was being outturned at 40,000 feet by a Vulcan bomber as I tried to shoot him down. Basically I was rendered impotent by technology because I could not fire a missile or lock on for a guns kill. That was 35 years ago and now the massive but hugely expensive computer technology that has evolved since then is the game-changer.

Hugely expensive the F-35 is, due mainly to its technology, but Israel would not have purchased the F-35 if it were a dog.

The F-35 is a silent long-range assassin hiding in the dark and that is what the electronic battlefield has become.

Byron Bailey is a veteran commercial pilot with more than 45 years’ experience and a former RAAF fighter pilot and trainer.