Some people here need to get rid of some questionable attitudes.

I look out of my own window now and again and I think “if you’d told me, when I started in this business, that in 2014 I’d be watching jets go into and out of a major U.S. airport and one in four of them would be Brazilian, I’d have said you were a loony.”

rcolistete – F-35C is too heavy for anything except Nimitz/Ford class. As for F-35B – don’t make the usual fan mistake of confusing fuel capacity with fuel fraction.

As for Brazil’s carrier strategy: Does it make less sense than suggesting that a commander of a 30-knot-plus carrier strike group is going to throw his hands in the air in glee because he’s just been “reinforced” with 12 jets on a 22-knot 50,000-ton spam-can full of Marines? Whoever is without sin among you…

Beating Porky-B’s 2 x 1k bombs, 2 x AAMs, no gun, 450nm HHH is not hard. (Remember the fans’ beloved high internal fuel load is not there on the B.)

As for survivability, an F-35B with external stores is a moderate-LO aircraft with limited EW. Gripen E is less stealthy but has all-new EW.

Cost? Saab has quoted $250 m for development, which is less than the flyaway cost of two F-35Bs at full rate (if you credit the FY2015 budget), so they can overrun that by 2x and still not impact the cost comparison. Beating $137m flyaway is not that difficult either, and op costs for the F-35 will be well north of the F-35A’s $30k+/FH in naval ops, where the powered lift system cycles twice per sortie all the time.

It’s risky, but there’s no affordable alternative in sight for either Brazil or India.

FBW – and the principles of low-RCS design and aerodynamics have changed exactly how? The basic conclusions highlighted in the report are reflected across the spectrum of LO designs today, from RQ-180, Neuron and Taranis to the F-35, J-20 and J-31.

The new and important report on Third Offset strategy out of CSBA (DC’s best connected strategic and operational think tank) refers to the F-35 as “semi-stealthy”.

If the LR fighter challenging you in your airspace is the one that has been most recently associated with such probes, good luck with a slow-accelerating interceptor and AIM-120s.

As Oblig says (and as fans miss) the point of contention is nearly always that F-35 fans (and indeed LM marketing) insist that the F-35 does better than everything else in every mission, while costing less.

At best, this assertion involves giving promises equal credit to performance.

As for Gripen costs in Brazil – the upfront cost is there, but I don’t think anyone expects Brazil to buy only 36 Gripens, and it positions Embraer for high-margin work on future aircraft for Brazil and worldwide. Unlike F-35 business, which is high-volume but moderate-margin (since much of it is build-to-print or close to that) and subject to re-competition at any time.

Well, Brazil did insist on faffing about with FX-2 for umpteen years and has finally jumped on to a train that’s been going full speed since the beginning of 2013, with less than four years to delivery, and now the whatever-the-Portuguese-for-trolls-is complain that there won’t be a hot production line in S.P. in 2017 for 2019 deliveries. Not to mention the fact that Embraer are competent, but not supermen, and they have KC-390 to build and their RJ and business markets to support.

The AIM-9X Block III is there to provide six MRAAM shots (external and internal). This was confirmed by the Navy AAM program manager at the Navy League show earlier this year.

Old charts don’t mean a lot in F-35-land and videos mean less. There has been nothing serious said about six internal AMRAAMs since 2010, I believe. Moreover, see official FAQs from 2011, since tossed down the memory hole:

http://web.archive.org/web/20110902125702/http://www.f35.com/resources/f-35-town-hall/q-and-a.aspx

How many internal air-to-air missiles with the F-35 carry? Will the weapons bays be designed to carry six AMRAAMs?

Four internal air-to-air missiles is the current requirement and capability. New, smaller developmental weapons and suspension and release equipment may increase the capacity in follow-on development, but no firm weapons and suspension and release equipment candidates to accomplish this have been identified to date.

The point is that the power/RCS/range effect is non-linear. And at a certain point, degrading the radar seeker is no longer of value unless you can reduce an IR seeker’s range to the same level.

Likewise, the “they’ll track stealth aircraft to greater range” has a limit. With ground-based early warning, it’s the horizon. For a tactical fighter, it’s “and how much of the airspace do you really want or need to see, Mr Pilot?”