June 25, 2007 at 5:45 pm
Hallo everybody!
I´m looking to the near future and don´t see any european study or project of fully-fledged stealth fighter. For past 2025 sevice even that…
Eurocanards will be the technologicaly obsolete planes in this time, will be not competitive in the world market and – what is more important – will also be unable to counter the fifth generation fighters from the „rest of the world“ in air combat.
For example – current studies and projects of the world next generation fighters/fighter-bombers:
USA:
F-22A
FB-22
F-35A/B/C
Russia:
PAK FA
LMFS
MFP(?)
China:
At least two projects of stealth fighters („XXJ“, „J-XX“, „J-14“ or „J-13“ called programs)
Japan:
ATD-X study
South Korea:
KFX project
India:
MCA or joint project with Russia
And Europe?
None.
There were some studies in 90´s (MBB FTTU in Germany, BAe Replica in UK, Dassault FACE in France) but in current time exist no relevant project or study in european countries. I purposely skip unmanned vehicles like the nEUROn – such small singlerole vehicles are limited in combat flexibility, weapons load, short range, subsonic speed, unability to A-A combat etc. etc….
Geo