You make, once more, no sense.

The Su was indeed navalised afterwards, and could do the job, because of its huge thrust.

The Rafale however, was designed from the start as a naval fighter.

The F4U was pressy lousy on a carrier, because of its handling characteristics. It fared much better from landbases (And that’s where it was mainly used)

As for arrestor gear on US built fighters, you can check, they ALL have an arresting hook. Would you by that suffest that a F-104 could have been navalised ? Or a F-106 ? That is an emergency arrestor gear, that subjects the plane to much less strain than a carrier landing. So, no, a hook is no proof that you could navalise a plane, or that the designers even had the option remotely in mind.

Now to the F-111: there was no main version. The USAF needed th F-105 replacement, the Navy, a fighter ( or rather, they wanted a Missileer).
But they didn’t want the -111B, hence the Tomcat development.

Oh, and you can obviously base any navalised plane on land … without ANY modification.

My point was very simple, an arrestor hook does indeed help in emergency landings and many fighters use it as a safety measure, no ones denies that.

Naval fighers always use arrestor hooks (except the Harrier and Forger which can land vertically) however land fighters can lack arrestor hooks they can use thrust reversers like the Tornado and Viggen

, air brakes like the Su-27 and F-15

, canards like the Gripen and J-10

,

other aircraft use parachutes

.

An arrestor hook is a must to a conventional fighter with no VTOL, however land based fighters not always use them in fact few have them.

The Rafale is a Mirage 4000 evolution and as such a land based fighter, when it was offered to the Germans or even Italians and british it was not offered as a naval fighter, but as a land based fighter and the proof is the Eurofighter has no arresting hook, which means it was not navalized.

The F-16 is a typical pure land fighter and lacks an arrestor hook

Its a tricky situation , the rafale on the designers board was meant to exist in 2 forms ie , carrier borne and land based . The F-35 was similar (3 forms instead of 2) . Both these aircrafts cannot be called purely Land based fighters designed for Naval fighters . A pure land based F-35 strike fighter would have looked a lot different had their been no STOVL and CV . The rafale wouldnt even have existed (EF typhoon for the french) .

Cant comment about the History of the SU or if it was meant to exist in the Navalized form from the outset but if the designers had the idea then obviously it influenced their design .

The F-35 is similar to the F-111 or a bit like the Rafale, however usually the main variant is always the air force variant therefore the naval variants always are purchased in smaller numbers if that is the case, exception to the case is the F-14 that only a few dozen flew in the iranian colors as land based fighters

Fighters like the F-4-U Corsari of the A-4 were designed as naval aircraft however later they showed that using them as land based aircraft was okay, for example the F-15 has an arresting hook sign of a possible navalization but the Su-27B has no arresting hook niether the Su-30, most of the Su-27 Flankers are land based and just a few dozens have been of the naval variant, the A-4 is the opposite it was first and for most a a naval aircraft, same the F-4-U Corsair.

you can easily transform a naval fighter into one land based but the opposite is not true for a land based aircraft

The F-14 is bigger than the F-15. The F-15’s T/W advantage is not going to keep it in the air with the same big load after it clears the end of the deck on launch. You could put all six Phoenix on it, but it wouldn’t have the same range.

You should say, while the F-14 has a smaller wing, with its pancake fuselage it can generate more lift per pound than the F-15. Its not really true to say that the F-15 has a lower wing loading, except in the most literal sense. The F-14 is not G limited in combat, either. (Lets see, which plane has broken in half in flight… 😀 )

Not quite that bad, but true, the Phoenix is not for dogfighting. But it would have a tough time pulling 6Gs anyway with all of that Phoenix weight, so a 6G limit is no problem at all. Besides, why would a pilot want to pull more than 6G with a load of AIM-54? The only manuver you would need to make is a 45 degree pull up to lob the Phoenix at a Backfire.
If an F-14 can’t bring back six AIM-54, an F-15N never would have.

The Navy chose a heavy VG aircraft because it will have the range and payload capability that a fixed wing Mach 2 fighter (or some slower Boeing pig) would not have, as well as other advantages. The F-14 and the F-15 are each beautifully optimized for their roles. Neither could perform the role of the other as well, which is why both were built. (Although the F-14A really deserved a better engine.)

Like when it went for the F-18E/F.

As an airframe, I would say the F-14 is more advanced. It has several innovative tricks, like the pancake, the retractable vanes, and of course the automatic variable sweep wings. The F-15 doesn’t even have leading edge flaps. As a fighter, the F-15 is superior for the reasons that you stated. But the F-14 is superior in the fleet defense role.

The recent problems with F-15s are more related to worn out fuselages than the design in general, the F-15 has had one of the safest records up to now.

The real facts show the US took both designs and the US navy the F-14 and the USAF the F-15, has the F-14 merits as a fleet defence fighter? probably yes it has, in reality we can say the F-15N was a looser, since it never reached real operational status or even the manufacturing stage , so the F-14 is the winner, but the question is if but in history ifs do not exist.

Certainly the F-14 was a fine aircraft, proved to be a good aircraft, an excellent carrier fighter but i think personally the F-15N was perhaps more practical if the US would not been as wealthy as it was in the 1970s.

The F-14 was good just because the US could afford to pay the price of it, however the russians and french have chosen land fighters to navalize and operate them aboard the deck

What really lost in the discussion is the acceptance of necessity of Fighter for any country who needs to have/had Airforce when Migs/Mirage could easily procured. Now to procure any aircraft we get a ballpark figure of $100Mil, which simply could not afford by even rich countries in large Nos.

The repeated quick/dirty solution of used f-16 being dissed is not really the best option or available options. First accept the necessity of Light Fighter in the world and the lost oppertunity of the established Fighter manufacturer America , Europe , Russia in this regard.

Aircraft are not as expensive as many think, there are at least more than 20 nations with large GDPs, a fleet of 40 Eurofighters or 40 Gripen is not as expensive as to be forbidingly unaffordable.

the question is more or less what nations are willing to fight a war?

In Latin america no nation is willing to spend a billion dollars in 5 F-22s or 10 F-35 if the purchase is not needed.

Having the USAF around in Latin america is a bless up to degree, no non latin american nation will attack a latin american nation and not face the USAF.

The only nations able to have long range bombers are Russia and the USAF and only the USAF has F-22s and B-2s, so it is more practical to have a few second hand F-16s perhaps a few Su-30s as a psycological threat.

Even Brazil can buy F-35s they have been offered the cheapest available fifth generation fighter and they rejected the offer.

Without allainces with a powerful air force, small air forces will suffer the same fate the Polish, danish, dutch, or Norwegian air forces during WWII when they faced the mighty Luftwaffe, in few words defeat

The most logic arrangement is like the following

Russian allies will buy Russian, among them India, Iran or algeria, these nations either can buy a light fifth generation fighter made buy Russia or cheap fighters like MiG-29s or second hand Su-27s.

Allies of China can buy FC-1s or J-7s among them we have Zimbawe, Sudan, Pakistan, perhaps a few former soviet republics or a few Latin american or African nations.

the Allies of the US will buy american or sometimes Israeli or European fighters, but basicly F-16s or F-35s, among them, Turkey, Mexico, Chile, Japan, Israel, Egypt, South Korea.

The Europeans also have allies and they share their market with the US, nations in Latin america like Brazil, Peru or Argentina, European nations like Poland, Hungary, Czech or Bulgaria and some nations in the middle east might buy Rafales, Gripen or Eurofighters

however the most likely cheapest light weight fighter is not the Gripen but the F-35 because up to now the lightest fifth generation available is the F-35 and if you want the best seller fourth generation fighter wellthe F-16 is always the best

I’ve been thinking about the current options for an air force with limited defence budgets & wants an affordable lightweight fighter – a modern day equivalent of the F-5E or Mig-21.

An aircraft that is cheap to buy, simple to maintain & one that most developing countries could afford as new-build aircraft.

Of course the definition of “affordable” is subjective. But arbitrarily, for the sake of argument, let’s set the Saab Gripen (new build) as the upper limit of the threshold, as the Gripen itself is a lightweight fighter.

The list of possibilities seems rather limited:

Saab JAS-39C/D Gripen
Chengdu J-10
CAC/PAC FC-1 (PF-17)
Chengdu F-7MG
Mig-35 Fulcrum-F (?)
F-16 Block 50/52 (?)

I am not sure how much a new F-16 Block 50/52/60 or Mig-35 costs, but I imagine they are not cheap.

Do you think the affordable lightweight fighter has been neglected by the Western aviation industry, or am I overestimating the purchase price of a new F-16 Block 52/60?

Are economically challenged developing countries destined to rely on refurbished 2nd-hand aircraft? :confused:

Everything depends in politics and budget

Considering budget is important but politics is more.

For example in Latin America nations with close relations to the US will buy F-16s.

Chile just recently adquiered 34 F-16s, some new ones and some ex-dutch air force; in Mexico there is the expeculation it will become another F-16 and F-18 customer, Colombia has bought more Kfirs that armed with Israeli weapons are excellent and really cheap, however nations like Brazil bought some ex-french Mirage 2000 and there is the posibility for Argentina to become another F-16 user

Many nations won`t buy fighters with limited range and warload and have decided to buy Su-30 in Venezuela or are mulling the posibility of buying Su-35s like Brazil and also Venezuela

Brazil is mulling the purchase of the Su-35 mostly on tech transfer grounds because recently the US offered the F-35 to the Brazilian defence minister Nelson Jobim, however Brazil has rejected the offer because the aircraft is useless for brazil, it is too expensive and has no tech transfer

O ministro da Defesa, Nelson Jobim, descartou ontem a compra de equipamentos militares dos Estados Unidos, principalmente os aviões de caça F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, da fábrica Lockheed Martlin, alegando que o país veta a transferência de tecnologia e o custo/benefício não interessa ao Brasil. Cada exemplar custa de US$ 50 milhões a US$ 60 milhões

http://www.defesanet.com.br/md1/usa_2.htm

Africa might buy some really cheap airframes but surprisingly the Su-27/30 derivatives have been bought in Algenria, Angola and Ethiopia, and the reason is obvious, currently the top nocht fighters are the Eurofighter and F-22 and the only way offer a realistic defence or a realistic cheap fighter to a really advanced version of Eurofighter is only in the form of a Su-30MKI or Su-35 fighter which are comparatively cheaper and almost as good as the really top dogs