If it had been designed with all the space inside for what was later hung on the outside it would have looked like a modernized F-105 or a single-engine Tornado. And if you need to do air-superiority you can unbolt the CFTs, hang 370gal tanks and go do it, while Foat Wuff Fats remains Foat Wuff Fats whatever you do.

Posting pre-coffee again.

Although let’s also review how many things have met their “objective” KPPs rather than scraping over the thresholds before we all get too excited. (Not the F-35 for sure.) In this case, it could be that the study is by way of seeing what it will take to meet objective for AARGM-ER.

Since the idea seems to be making the weapon more compact while increasing its range, preferably without introducing AB propulsion, this could get interesting.

Precisely, Sintra. The issue for the U.S. is that the biggest single piece of the acquisition budget is something that adds no value over cheaper alternatives in Afghanistan-type conflicts and hasn’t got the range for China.

What range do we expect out of the F-35 with bombs on four pylons and AIM-9Xs outboard?

VN – Which contracts would those be? Not Korea, which I believe is the only real competition (not a beauty contest) where prices were on the table for both the F-35 and a European competitor.

Any grown-up knows how unreliable a comparison of two completely different deals can be.

And – good Lord, it’s good news when the F-35 defeats an airplane designed 63 years ago as a low-cost, carrier-based bomber? How well would it do against an equal-cost formation of A-4s?

Block 2B did not exist at the onset of the program. The Marines were supposed to be operational with Block 2, but it was not defined as 2B is today. In those days, even Block 1 had weapons.

Robbie – Were the concrete-nose F2s declared operational?

Feddykins – Why should I be unhappy? What un-anticipated developments have occurred? DOT&E and others have chronicled the process by which evaluations have been eliminated (the latest being the OUE, ditched in 2014) to protect the Marine IOC schedule, and how “work-arounds” have been introduced to bypass deficiencies in fusion and ALIS. Not that the Marine IOC was regarded as important in any strategic sense, but it had to be gotten out of the way to minimize its impact on 3F, which is the capability that actually matters to some extent.

Fedaykin’s sputterings aside, I know of no fighter in recent years that has entered service with so many restrictions and without any public acknowledgment of its limitations. (The French, by contrast, were entirely open about the limited role of the Rafale F1.)

I believe this is also the first U.S. fighter in many years to enter service without a formal IOT&E or Opeval.