F-35B Fighter Jets Take on Enemy Aircraft in Tests

The army contractor says F-35B is doing a "great job."

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — Four F-35B fighter planes recently took on nine enemy aircraft during testing and performed very well, Lockheed Martin said in an article on its website on Tuesday.

“It went very poorly for the bad guys,” US Marines Deputy Commandant Lt. Gen. Jon Davis stated in the article.

Davis characterized the F-35B as doing a “great job,” but due to the classified nature of the program he did not provide any additional details.

He also noted that the F-35B is a superior warplane to the F-16 Fighting Falcon, which outperformed the F35-B in a dogfight during recent testing.

“I love the F-16. It was a great airplane. Still is pretty good, but I would not want to be in a fight against an F-35,” Davis added.

The Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II is a family of single-seat, single-engine and all-weather stealth multirole fighting jet that is undergoing testing and final development.

The F-35’s development has been beset by delays, cost overruns and technical problems. Critics of the program in the US Congress have argued that the F-35 jet is unnecessary and a waste of money.