you mean it will do what rafale has already been doing for some time? fusing all receivers information and display it in one clear picture to the pilot?

I see you ignored the second part of my sentence. Sensor fusion isn’t a monolithic term. First of all, there are different levels of sensor fusion(using the term the way that you are is akin to saying “well, the Draken had a datalink too, so what’s the big deal with MADL”.) Secondly, the capability of the sensors themselves play a key role too. There’s no comparison between capability of the APG-81, EODAS, MADL, bandwidth/processing power, and the respective systems on the Rafale.

The SH lost against Rafale/Typhoon. The SH is just the US yardstick for the F-35. In kinematic performance the F-35 came close to the Euros in optimum loaded condition only.
As a system the F-35 has still an edge, when it becomes combat ready after 2016.

It didn’t lose because of its avionics though.

What avionics might those be? It’s really only the radar and ECM that will count in an aerial combat comparison.

Radar, ECM, ESM, EOTS/EODAS, MADL, etc….and the fusing of on/offboard information, into a coherent picture, for superior situational awareness. The competitors have yet to match the Super Hornet’s MMI, much less approach the level, that F-35 will be operating at.

The reality is simple – I am not pesimistic, I just realize that having better acceleration than a Hornet at certain points of the flight envelope is far away from being close to Raptor – unless we want to dismantle everything that we knew/believed about the F-22A by now.

The fact is that we are confronted by two categories of claims which are so widely spaced apart that we can say they contradict each other. The first category places a loaded F-35 above a clean F-16 and close to F-22 in terms of dynamic performance. The second category rates the F-35 much more humbly – somewhere close to F-18 and there are no mentions about loaded vs clean or anything of the sort.

Important to note is that the first category of claims exclusively comes from people directly linked to the F-35’s producer, that means people who have extreme interest in promoting the plane. At least I have never seen anyone outside of the LM company ever officially claiming that F-35 was even close to F-22 in terms of performance.

The second category of claims comes from people who are not linked to aircraft’s manufacturer in any way – they are mostly representatives of its future users with zero interest in spreading meaningless negative comments.

Now you can guess twice which group I chose to give better credibility. 😎
You should consider that, too..

The problem as I see it, is that when you see the word similar, you equate it to equal, or worse than(we’re at no time told how similar). Secondly an aircraft with similar handling, and better acceleration, than a Hornet, is by no means a slouch. Additionally, the pilot speaking, is an F-18 pilot, so that’s his frame of reference. Jon Beesley has flown the F-16, F-22, and F-35. You ignored the F-18 pilot’s remarks about the F-35 being lethal in WVR too.

I’ve heard the statements from JB to be:

However, it seems a little surprising (but not too surprising) to me that a clean Block 50 F-16 and F-22 have comparable acceleration. Is this true (honest question)? Wouldn’t something like the Typhoon (with a light load) also have similar performance (or at least as much) as a clean Block 50? And this says nothing of supersonic performance, where the Rafale and Typhoon’s lower bypass engines may even give them an advantage.

My guess is that at supersonic speeds, the Typhoon’s acceleration would be superior to the F-16. At subsonic/transonic, I’m not sure how much difference there’d be. Comparable isn’t a very precise term- The F-22 is superior, but the F-16 isn’t a slouch, is the take away.

Being able to fly high AoA doesn’t necessarily translate to good turning performance- high AoA causes energy loss, and when you have a high wing loading (like the F-35) you must compensate by increasing AoA. Rafale pilots noticed this issue when flying against Super Hornets, stating that the aircraft has a tendency to sink when turning.

The high AoA doesn’t relate to the turning ability so much as the nose pointing control.

It seems incredibly misleading to me to draw the comparison between the F-35 and F-22’s airshow performance due to a similar FCS. The F-22’s supermaneuverability comes from TVC, something that the F-35 lacks.

The F-22’s post stall agility is due to the TVC. Its other maneuvers are due to its flight control surfaces. If you watch the Super Hornet demos, they perform some pretty amazing displays without TVC either.

While I’ve no doubt that there is at least some truth the claims, you have to remember that Beesley works for Lockheed Martin. That alone should give pause when taking the claims at face value. Another test pilot (Norwegian Air Force) stated the F-35 “is not an airshow plane.” That should make you question things a bit.

Mr. Beesley wasn’t paid to lie. Not being an airshow plane, doesn’t really tell much, about an aircraft’s combat effectiveness.

F-22 ‘raptor’ bah looking at the price and limited weapon capacity its nothing but a Craptor . Hell Eurofighter will blow this contraption from the sky thanks to its extremely powerful IRIS-T

Assuming that it didn’t get killed, and was able to get within visual range, then it might have a chance. In a few years when the AIM-9X Blk2 is available for the F-22, then it won’t matter what SRAAM the Eurofighter is carrying.

Of course they don’t. The cabin is already cramped enough and the plane overweight (which is why cabin pressurization was scrapped from the original specifications).

Yet range and speed are still given for >10k feet cruise…

At 10k, the passengers don’t need oxygen.