As I asked SpudmanWP before: Can you explain what those 650 parameters are? Or the alleged 200-some on the F-22? Without that data, AVM Osley’s statement means nothing at all.

Of course Jet Engine Modulation has been around for decades as an NCTR technique. Unfortunately it has become less and less effective as more aircraft have partial/full LOS masking and RAM in the inlet ducts.

All sorts of ways of doing NCTR have been discussed, and of course there is not the slightest indication that any of them are done better by the F-35 than anything itself, other than AVM Osley’s frankly incomprehensible statement about “650 parameters”.

Serious Rafale money started 10-12 years before JSF (that is, demonstrator funding). F3 was being delivered to squadrons in 2008, about 10 years ahead of Block 3F F-35, despite hitting budget problems that the F-35 did not experience. F3 supports Damocles, Areos, ASMP-A, Exocet, Scalp and most if not all AASM versions (IIRC F3R expands the laser-AASM launch envelope). Obviously not all these weapons/systems were declared operational at the same time – that would hardly be practical – but the fact remains that F3 provides them and that all were operational by 2012. So when the F-35 Block 4A (2012 + 10 years) carries nuclear and conventional cruise missiles, antiship missiles, six PGMs or a LOROP pod, and can carry 4-6 x AAMs at the same time, and enough fuel to get anywhere useful, parity will have been achieved.

The RFI specifies eight engines.

Can you name ANY military program in the world that has been run as transparently as the F-35 program?

Can you name any military program in the world that has the F-35’s marketing budget? And speaking of “transparent”:

Gates said he’s particularly excited that the F-35 appears to be on schedule to equip the first training squadron at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla. , by 2011, and enable the Marine Corps to reach initial operational capability by 2012.

http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=55684

So transparent that the SecDef didn’t know there was a three-year delay.

There is no money.

Under the program of record, the USAF is buying 80 F-35s per year through 2037. The USAF is also planning to buy $550m LRSBs at a rate of 8-10 a year (most likely) in the same timeframe.

There is no money.

The so-called 6gen is the substitute for many of the F-35s. No alternative is fiscally realistic.

DJC – Most of the people who say that are USAF coming off F-16 and F-15. Not the same as a Rafale, Typhoon, Gripen or even SH.

Correct, Haarvala. Norwegian weather is such that clearing runways of ice is not always practical.

VNomad – I don’t know what the Norwegians would likely have done, and neither do you, but only one of us attempts to build an argument on it. As for max versus min approach speed, I’m sure that the F-35C will land slower with day reserves and no weapons, but that’s not the KPP. Nor does it address the F-35A approach speed.

Eskodas – Lots of stuff here if you scroll back to 2008.

http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/f35-lightning-ii-faces-continued-dogfights-in-norway-03034/

However, the point remains that the Norwegian government gives no reason whatsoever for its estimate that Gripen would be more costly to operate than JSF, which is contrary to every other piece of public evidence in the entire cosmos.