Your guessing about least important factor in mission can be verified from 2016+ maybe. [By the way you were the one doing fancy claims about the flight capabilities of the F-35.]The same thing about the capability of avionic and its factor in mission success compared to the Euro-Canards f.e.. We still have to see if the EW+stealthy airframe gains will fulfill the promises in frontline operations some day. Modular designed avionic can be “forever young” as an upgrade is possible shown in the SH example too.

I think it’d be more accurate to say that given LM’s results with the F-22, I’m giving them a little benefit of the doubt, with regards building aircraft with excellent performance/systems. It may be late, the cost may be up, but I don’t doubt that the aircraft will be what the military users say(and expect) that they will be.

Has there been an announced delay for production of the T-50? I won’t post the link as it is in Russian, but on another site there is a link that the OP claims makes mention of the T-50 serial production being put off until 2019-2020! Anyone know of any truth to this? If so why?
Does this mean I will have to wait until 2021-2022 before I see an operational T-50/”Su-50″ squadron…crying out loud!!! 🙁

Just being realistic, I wouldn’t think those numbers to be too far off, unless the inital aircraft are pretty vanilla. They’re going to need a lot more test aircraft to crank out the number of flight hours/test points, to get anywhere near IOC. Even then, it’s going to take time to see a fully capable plane(with the new engines, mature systems/avionics, etc…).

The main intrest is, what of the former F-35 program will survive in the future?! Most of the former claims have been sacked in the meanwhile and the present F-35 program does not differ much from that of the Eurocanards avionic-wise. None seriously will see thousands of F-35s any longer. It will be intresting to learn what missions are kept for the F-35 and what will go to interim solutions or unmanned vehicles in the end. The F-16 was A2A at first to become A2G as the main mission later on. The F-35 will start as A2G design, when the A2A is the secondary mission only. The design of the F-16 allowed to trade some agility and performance for the less demanding A2G role, when it is much more difficult to get that from a heavior A2G design. It will be intresting to have a comparision of the flight performance of the F-35 compared to a SH. LM and the DoD are very tight-lipped about that. In the meanwhile most people realised that the gains from the passive stealth of the F-35 can be reached by a smart active jamming as well.

There’s an awful lot of assumptions here to stay polite, not to mention ignoring contradictory information that’s out there.

There’s no way you’d get a cheaper aircraft, by cancelling the F-35 at the stage.

In your own post, you posited that transonic region is the most challenging part of the envelope, yet wonder why more time hasn’t been spent at higher speeds. That was the point I was getting at, in terms of you answering your own question. I strongly suspect that it won’t be long before you see the F-35 flying at M1.6+. They’re also opening the high G envelope, so we’ll soon have a much better understanding of the raw performance potential, and put the hyperbole to rest.

Nonsense to stay polite. There are three main aerodynamic areas in general and the F-35 will operate in all three. The most demanding is the transsonic range and the main operating area of the F-35.
Subsonic till ~ Mach 0,8
Transsonic over Mach 0,8 till ~ Mach 1,3 (depending on the aerodynamic quality of a fighter)
Supersonic over Mach 1,3 (just above Mach 1,8 the heat friction becomes an issue)

I think you may have answered your own question with this response.

You’re claim is as much a guess as mine. Neither of us know what the test schedule looks like, or what the basis is for the test points. I gave a plausible explaination. To further speculate is, well just that.

Why wouldn’t an F-15 be capable of a BVR win against a J-11B(especially one with a (v)2 or later radar, and C7/D missiles)?