[CaptainCrunch]

From a Combat Aircraft article on the F-35

While a lot of missions are conducted with the JOTT partners, the Dutch F-35s periodically fly with the 148th Fighter Squadron ‘Kickin’ Ass’, the RNLAF’s F-16 training unit in Tucson, Arizona, to evaluate and validate new tactics. ‘The first time we got to test all these advanced capabilities to their fullest potential was about a year ago, with and against our F-16s in Tucson,’ says Knight. ‘The initial scenario was that our two F-35s would escort a four-ship of F-16s across a notional border and protect them against another eight-ship of F-16s simulating a modern adversary. A relatively inexperienced flight leader was in charge of the F-16s on our side and Lt Col Joost ‘Niki’ Luijsterburg, the Tucson detachment commander, was responsible for the adversaries. Up to this point we had only practised these scenarios in the simulators and while we had a decent game-plan, we were all anxious to see how the F-35 would perform in real life. We figured that the F-35’s stealth would keep us out of harm’s way for most of the fight, but that we also need to protect the friendly F-16s, maximize the lethality of their missiles and get them to the target. To make this happen, we planned to initially use electronic attack against the adversary F-16s, see if we could avoid having them detect friendly fighters and datalink the location of the hostile aircraft to our F-16s. This way we could use the F-16s on our side to shoot down the initial wave of enemy fighters and keep our own missiles available once the ‘Blue Air’ F-16s had to focus on their target attack. The plan worked flawlessly. ‘In the debrief ‘Niki’ told us it was one of the most memorable sorties he had ever flown. Having previously worked in the F-35 program office he was elated to find out how effective the F-35 was, but at the same time he was frustrated by not getting a single shot off the rail against us, while getting killed multiple times. After that sortie it really hit us that the F-35 was going to make a big difference in how we operate fighters and other assets in the Royal Netherlands Air Force.’