Russians have given up on the MIG 29 ages ago, and is only being kept up by Indian orders.

Compare Su 35 with j 10 🙂

I promised to do something else and did keep the promise.

much to EELightning and my own releif here is a direct quote for all the US aircraft fans who were desperately trying to find something to keep them interested in this competition:

Direct from Bill Sweetman on Ares by the way….

I can put the link in if really necessary…..

“Another note from Tuesday’s media conference: The program office has no activities under way in relation to India, despite reports that JSF might be offered in a bid to reopen the Medium Multi Role Combat Aircraft competition.”

Since when did the Mr.Sweetman start to represent the USG ?

JSF sale to India is being discussed at the Senate level and if they sanction it, then it will be on offer to India.

And please the current MRCA program is very much on schedule apart from the initial delay in issuing RFPs.

And the original MRCA competition and the current one are totally different and cannot be related because.

1. The older competition only had light-medium fighters and was intended to replace MIG 21s.

2. The current one intents to replace MIG 21,23,27, and most probably the M2K in the near future.

3. By your logic would you call the Brazilian FX and FX-2 the same ?

Flights interactive magazine on the Paris Airshow

http://cde.cerosmedia.com/IFlight_Paris2011_Day1/1S4e00591420237012.cde

What is this you talk? Nobody here is part of the PAK-FA program, stop making it personal.

Its not personal really for that I have to be an American and all the PAK FA fan boys have to be Russians.

I just find that the F 35 gets a lot of stick most of it unreasonable from the Europeans & Russians especially.

And I know that in the next 20-25 years the F 35 is going to make most of you look really silly when it knocks over Russian fifth/4++ gens over during an American military adventure somewhere.

As for the PAK FA as my country is investing billions into it I want it to do well and be competitive against the J 20, which I think it will be.

now, two things:

1/ had f-35 been in the contest it would be the first out, simply because the trials wouldn’t be possible (it’s still a prototype not cleared for a good many things IAF has put the contenders through

2/ the “manouverability is irrelevant” thingy is the same reasoning that led to canonless fighters like the F-4… until reality had the bad idea to kick in…

you can keep believing it if you like… sooner or later, the reality (again) will show whether it’s true…

1/ If the F 35 was offered intially the contest would not have gone the way it has gone. If the RFI was answered with the F 35 instead of the F 16IN & the IAF was interested the RFP would not have asked for such tough evaluations and we may have had something like what the Norwegians did.

2/ The capability of HOBS missiles is already demonstrated using JHMCS and similar systems so I doubt it would fail like the early A2A missiles.

The USAF seem to be happy with its capabilities, so are the partner nations, a few noises here and there from people who don’t have access to classified information won’t make the F 35 inferior to fighters of a previous generation. People in the know whether from USAF/US DoD/LM/RAAF all of them are confident about the planes capabilities. Even its critics within the USG/Senate only criticise it because of delays and cost over runs and not cus of lack of capability.

Cannot see the F-35 for India happening tbh

1. By the time the F-35 is available for purchase the Rafale and Eurofighter will be better in all aspects other than a vlo platform. Which on the F-35 can only be used on first day due to its abysmal internal bays.

2. India is involved in 2 very low aircraft programs which should be all things proper and correct a lot cheaper to purchase than the F-35. So i believe that they will simply wait for the ability. After all there is little chance of china/Pakistan getting stealth first anyway.

3. It appears to me that manoeuvrability is fairly important to the Indians, and there are serious questions as to how the F-35 will move on the dance floor.

In short i really cannot see it.

Now i don’t Think india will buy the F 35 as part of the MRCA at this alte stage. However you are really mistaken.

1. The F 35 can carry ordinances on pylons too, the whole concept of the JSF is based on flexibility, on the first day it can be VLO and carry out strikes and A2A missions on the following days it can load up on external stores and be a bomb truck.

2. India may have the JSF as a fall back option if there are delays in both the programs. Actually I don’t think the IAF will consider the JSF at this stage because the competiton is nearly over and people would cry foul, but had it been in in the first place, I have no doubt it would have been in the final list.

3. And you say the F 35 ain’t maneuvarable based on what ? A certain Carlo Kopp and a bunch of Ruso-Euro fanboys on forums ? It will be as maneuvarable as a clean Early model F 16. And because it carries it weapons internally and the Eurocanards carry theirs externally, I doubt there will be any significant advantage for them in WVR. And with EODAS maneuvarability is irrelavant:diablo:

So you don’t think that 1 static tester, 1 ground lab, 4 SSD prototypes and 13 pre-production models by 2016 can compete with the F-35 flight test programme? The latter most recently described by Sen. John McCain of SASC as “incredibly troubled”, “a train wreck” and accused LM of doing an “abysmal job”.

Shouldn’t be too difficult, huh?

Thats America’s second stealth fighter.

Do you even have a second one on paper:rolleyes:

And the Boeing FA-XX whatever will be ready in 20s i guess.