What could indeed turn out to be one of F-35’s ironic downside marketing points, is it being hyped as a VLO deep striker and penetrating S-300 hunter killer. And we boast 4,000-5,000 of these puppies? Who are we going to strike, the Andromeda galaxy? Can we reverse-role this for a minute and contemplate how the West would perceive Kremlin calls for building even 400+ ‘deep-strike’ Su-34 penetrators? Or PLAAF requesting 400+ J-xx?

I know we have a global-synergistic industrial complex to keep employed and humming along, right?? But the raw marketing of F-35 alone needs a makeover imho, in addition to a reduced-buy affordability-restructuring, if the program is to have any realistic chance of being sustainable past LRIP.

Maybe start by mutually cooling down the rhetoric re: killing various foreign integrated air defenses and going down town?

Perhaps consider reconfiguring F-35’s perception as more of a ‘Modern Reduced Observable’ (MRO, as opposed to VLO) Joint Defence Fighter (JDF)?

Other than that, the NG would certainly appear to be a very capable (as stand-alone, or part of Lo-mix) interim light-defense-fighter for anyone – even US ANG!??

That’s 4000-5000 over 40yrs though, not all in service at the same time. Additionally, it’d be replacing a large number of legacy aircraft, so the net numbers wouldn’t be nearly as dramatic as how you’re framing it.

The frontal aspect is the normal figure given, that’s the aspect 2 approaching aircraft would likely see. That’s not to say RCS figures from other angles aren’t important to manage, but….they don’t really provide useful info when mentioning RCS statistics. This is why you don’t normally hear what the RCS figure from a 45 degree rear oblique aspect is, or what it would be as viewed from directly above.

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Israeli Air force aircraft landed during the past weekend at a military base in Saudi Arabia and unloaded large quantities of military gear, according to a report published Wednesday by Islamic website Islam Times.

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I’d want to see a variety of corroborating sources, before giving it much credence. This would be a case of very strange bedfellows if it turns out to be accurate.

What’s the purpose of firing any AA missile at its max range? Effective range of any AA missile is when fired against small, maneuvering target is significantly smaller than it’s max range.

BTW: I’m not sure if the APG-63, APG-68(V)5 or APG-73 wouldn’t be able to track a Flanker sized target (RCS=20 m2) from a distance of >100 km.

All 3 of those radars could easily track a 20m^2 target at that range. The APG-63(v)2 and 3, the APG-82, and the APG-79 most certainly can, as could the Typhoon’s radar.

The 140m is a generous number. But say you get a commitment to build 100 more planes (and if the production line wasn’t shut down,) you could conceivably negotiate a significant price reduction. But that’s not going to happen unless something drastic occurs. Reopening the production line would most likely increase the AUPC.

If they built 100 more planes, the fly away cost would be below $140 million.

If you add in development costs, how much more does any other fighter cost, than the commonly accepted fly away cost though? Had they not shut down the F-22 production line at 187, Raptor number 188 wouldn’t have cost $350 million.

The F-15, F-16, F-18, Gripen, Typhoon(and any other plane that can use AMRAAMs) could meaningfully use it.